The ghosts that haunt us, the memories, the stains regain their footing on our neck, our soul, every December. A snow globe--dusty, forgotten on a high shelf--is stirred by our agitation. Old phantoms start to circulate. Impatient flurries of wind carve out a space in which the snowflakes freely congregate. They are forging shapes (more animal than mineral), the camouflaged fox and his camouflaged prey and everyone, dancing.
I equate mental health with action. I am not alone. To do nothing is a frightening prospect, the only actual cardinal sin. It is tempting to lay awake in bed, or pull over and take five minutes to enjoy your motorized isolation tank, or wander (not too far) into the Scotch pines, the centrifugal cologne of Christmas.
But this can be, unnerving freedom...
One can only imagine the thoughts that might condense into fears in that silence. The ideas that would arrive like birds to fence post and wire--a kind of melancholy punctuation--only to scatter from every perch when the shotgun of your father, rife with personality, arrives (again). He is the biggest ghost, the loudest ghost. He is obsessed with our contingencies, wailing his opinions, a grating wind.
Haunting is done by the living, chasing the dead. The obsessions of a ghost boast about his only son, still waiting, for word. He haunts me.
I equate mental health with action. I am not alone. To do nothing is a frightening prospect, the only actual cardinal sin. It is tempting to lay awake in bed, or pull over and take five minutes to enjoy your motorized isolation tank, or wander (not too far) into the Scotch pines, the centrifugal cologne of Christmas.
But this can be, unnerving freedom...
One can only imagine the thoughts that might condense into fears in that silence. The ideas that would arrive like birds to fence post and wire--a kind of melancholy punctuation--only to scatter from every perch when the shotgun of your father, rife with personality, arrives (again). He is the biggest ghost, the loudest ghost. He is obsessed with our contingencies, wailing his opinions, a grating wind.
Haunting is done by the living, chasing the dead. The obsessions of a ghost boast about his only son, still waiting, for word. He haunts me.
Music teases the early morning, through smoke and fog, across the lately frozen lake. Their anxious play, the specters, arm in arm, reflected in the mirror of the ice, the flattery of the pond. Distance persists and these are simple facts that you hold onto that prove that you were there.
The idea is taught,
passed down through ranks and generations: that we are the haunted; we who walked with kindness and with bravery, tormented by mere figments. As if we make a passive audience, politely overwhelmed by this broader world. As if we weren't drawn to the apocalypse, the accident, the sticky spill...
You haunt me, in your strawberry blond wig. You're the new girl, with no mirror of your own. "Honey" is the new girl's name.
I used to strip as Santa Clause, drunk on stage, writhing. Just beyond the bubble of stage light, I see him grinning while shaking his head. Not "honey" nor "sugar plum" nor the luminescent "candy cane", I will present the facts and play back video with Christian strictness, because "the ghost of Christmas present" has cursed us, and cultivated distinct biases...
"Thank you for your question!"
As he peals the pages back, the stocking cap, the fur-lined gloves, the fur-lined boots, slip off his body creating an out of place pile of mukluks and blubber, drying in the sunshine of Los Angeles. Your hostess's pool flashing with sapphires, looked like summer had come, like summer was literally stripping off layers of skin.
"Come here, come here." There is something more shocking in his final reveal: The velvet and the ermine having been "good to him" will enhance his renegade run. In an exaggerated gesture of gratuitous wealth and its toxins, he drops the precious fur on the ground. After cape, his pantalons , his jacket, suspenders and shirt have been removed. This is a queer, Papa Noel, and--obsessed with hope--a specimen of Christmas present.
The red cotton long johns are tight; they are made with a hint of lycra that describes all ill intention and makes me capable of forming egoless apologies, little white lies. My misguided ambition is to liberate one's past. The strip tease has ended with his massive trunk, hunky legs, each clutching the uncle's vain glorious romance. This emaciated child called Ignorance, once angled with everything, locks her fragile body on the stripper's left thigh. The other, a boy, a smelly urchin named Want, looking down and sniffling, is that anchor that is always so heavy, wrapped around this powerful right leg, paralyzing not only ability but also desire.
You haunt me, in your strawberry blond wig. You're the new girl, with no mirror of your own. "Honey" is the new girl's name.
I used to strip as Santa Clause, drunk on stage, writhing. Just beyond the bubble of stage light, I see him grinning while shaking his head. Not "honey" nor "sugar plum" nor the luminescent "candy cane", I will present the facts and play back video with Christian strictness, because "the ghost of Christmas present" has cursed us, and cultivated distinct biases...
"Thank you for your question!"
As he peals the pages back, the stocking cap, the fur-lined gloves, the fur-lined boots, slip off his body creating an out of place pile of mukluks and blubber, drying in the sunshine of Los Angeles. Your hostess's pool flashing with sapphires, looked like summer had come, like summer was literally stripping off layers of skin.
"Come here, come here." There is something more shocking in his final reveal: The velvet and the ermine having been "good to him" will enhance his renegade run. In an exaggerated gesture of gratuitous wealth and its toxins, he drops the precious fur on the ground. After cape, his pantalons , his jacket, suspenders and shirt have been removed. This is a queer, Papa Noel, and--obsessed with hope--a specimen of Christmas present.
The red cotton long johns are tight; they are made with a hint of lycra that describes all ill intention and makes me capable of forming egoless apologies, little white lies. My misguided ambition is to liberate one's past. The strip tease has ended with his massive trunk, hunky legs, each clutching the uncle's vain glorious romance. This emaciated child called Ignorance, once angled with everything, locks her fragile body on the stripper's left thigh. The other, a boy, a smelly urchin named Want, looking down and sniffling, is that anchor that is always so heavy, wrapped around this powerful right leg, paralyzing not only ability but also desire.
