Eatin' Hydrangeas
The quiet of the single life—
It’s funny how that internal storm,
that steady rolling of the tornado hooks,
and green sky, and hail, and force—
how it silently, ominously, churns overhead.
and then it just drops.
Accompanied by the shriek of the siren that sends the 5th graders into the hall,
kneeling with textbooks over their heads.
Meanwhile—
the thunderous noise of Friday night in the city is happening.
Cars are moving down I-75/85, honking, merging, driving like bats out of hell.
Laughs float up from the streets below as drunk concert goers mosey on home from the Benz.
Glasses clink on the hotel courtyard down the block.
Prayers lift from bedside knees.
These are the movements of the heartbeat of the south.
But you?
You’re the infant’s foot pressing against the wall of his mother’s belly.
Ready for the world.
For more than the womb.
But it's not time yet.
When you sit alone in the silence and the noise, it lets you connect to loneliness—
to the darkness that Dahmer chewed from.
That ate to keep.
That picked from lack, in hope of whole.
That took to fill.
But does the appetizer choose back the eater? Doubtful.
Emptiness begets emptiness.
But even so, you understand.
Sometimes I want to consume that silence.
that pumping heart—
Buh-bum, buh-bum, buh-bum. cease
To eat the quiet anxiety of loneliness.
To drown it out.
Not sit with it.
I look down on the cars passing below as the balcony door closes.
And I feel the aloneness tighten in my throat—
The final chords of the song that’s been playing fade
and I hear the beats that beat in my own chest.
Miles away, across from the park, the Blake's is flashing their bar lights.
2:30 AM. Time to go.
To return to the alone—
that's sitting at the table, maybe in its house coat and rollers, smoking a cigarette–
waiting.
And yet life still happens.
It’s happening all the time.
Lovers are fighting like hummingbirds at the ruby feeder. The one with the plastic flowers. The one Meme hung. The one in the backyard with the tinroof shed.
Strangers are drawn to one another across the sticky floor as they leave the bar—pulled by a force. Cupid's bow? The fates’ strings? A fortune cookie? Love? Or maybe just, "you'll do for the night," beer goggles?
In downtown, a man sits at home in the late hours, writing–slow country playing in the background.
And the great Tarot reader flops the cards: the rocks and the devil and the lovers and the fool—
I dunno what any of that that means,
or even if it’s right.
But they still flop.
Like an Ace high.
Like whether or not you decide to hit or stand on 16 and not deviate. (that’s important)
That heartbeat—
it beats on.
Beating as the ticking of an alarm clock.
Unnoticed, until it’s time.
It doesn’t really matter how many glasses of Sauvi B you drink—
how good that grassy grapefruit tastes from the Tiffany Cabernet glasses Hay gave you for Christmas—
The alarm sounds eventually.
When you’re in love?
The ticking clock is mute.
It's just hands moving in the background.
Just spinning as the days move by.
Keeping time to the beat of the world.
But single?
You can hear the ticking.
You hear the heartbeat of the cogs of time while they’re spinning.
Teeth meeting teeth, and cranking—grinding, even.
You hear each grain of sand as it falls.
You hear the cars moving around Centennial Park.
You hear the dogwoods bloom.
You hear the blinking of the far-off cell towers—red against the night.
Blink. Echo. Tighten in your chest. Repeat.
You understand that crusty dried speck of sourdough crumb that is your soul—
Your soul dried beneath the square foothold of the kitchen cabinets before the broom sweeps it away—
You can look down like a satellite and view a trail of lights and lives below as you float through the cold and dark.
And then you pour out what's left of one glass too many,
and you take off your clothes,
and you leave them strewn across the foyer,
and you flip back the bedding,
and wrap yourself in the armor of your sheets.
And you breathe.
(Pillows enshrouding you)
And you close your eyes to the scent of Arm & Hammer detergent.
And the world is still happening outside.
And you’re a part of it somehow, even in this cocoon.
But that’s it for today.
And there’s fear.
And there’s hope.
And maybe there’s love—
somewhere.
Maybe it’s blooming later.
Maybe it’s still waking up.
Waking up, with the hydrangeas.