loneliness catalog: hix park
it is not always a lie i tell; my excuse
to wander the backwoods behind
my old house, i say i wish to capture
the trees in their undressing during
the mid-thrust of fall. today, i
photographed an old black cherry
tree starting to lose its bark, close
to collapse. today, two deer danced
in front of my lens long enough for me
to document it. today, i followed a man
for miles into nowhere, until i was
completely lost, no longer sure of which
direction the sun would set. the man
asked me what i am doing out here so late
in season, and i pointed to two swallows
circling each other in what I presume
was in lust to say i like to find things
when they’re unknowing of their own
heat. he nods, he understands but the words
are caught in his throat like a brush
of leaves. a third man followed us through
the forest in hopes that we will lead him
to his unraveling. he says, he found a
mushroom so orange, it could be the sun,
told us he would take us to it if we wanted.
we nodded without questioning his intent;
we are all here for the same thing, but none
of us are willing to admit it.
notice theory
i start every story with
noticing: what i can touch,
who i cannot. i take survey of
the room, question who is
alive, who might be a figment
of my false reality.
often i do not believe someone
is dead until i call them and
they do not answer. when i was
a child, i thought everyone was
dead until they appeared in
front of me, risen from the
grave.
what vast
variance i’ve created for myself
through this learning of
deadness. i tell a friend to text me
when you make it home and they
do not. in my mind they are
gone. i find a dead hen in the
pond knee-deep in ice. i am not
sure about the protocol of dead
things. i do not touch it.
i believe in omens. i believe in the pith of
mothers saying text me when you get home,
chile, i believe in the dragging of the “L” in
“chile” to emphasize how tired we have
become at losing kin to the night air—i
answer every message within seconds, to
prove my existence. i speak invocations of
survival,
place runes beneath my
tongue in prayer. let my grandfather
be okay when he misses my phone
call. let my sister be okay when she
forgets to message me back.
even for my father, whom i do not call, i still
pray. i search his name in the toledo papers,
wait to hear from his wife that he did not
make it; that she sat, phone in hand, waiting
for the text that would not arrive.
on the other hand, my mother texts me every
morning just to prove to herself she is not a
ghost. i answer every message seconds after
i receive them. on the days she does not
respond to my response, i spend the rest of
the day waiting for her eulogy.
