I Wrapped You In Ferns
I wrapped you in ferns, the most sacred act of my life. It was early in the morning when I left the house. It wasn't my house but the house of acquaintances, some of whom would become friends, some of whom I would feel kindness toward, or lust, or envy. I rode up the hill that morning until I thought I would die. My throat burned and my chest heaved and I had to stop and lie on the gravel. Then I continued on and hid my bicycle in the tall grass beside the road. You never knew this, and never will, the things about my bicycle and my lust. I walked through the trees, over the pine bed, saw bear tracks and grouse nests and imagined that I was the only person in the world. I lay on the forest floor, breathing in the pine air before making my way to the water's edge.
Water has always instilled wonder in me. It is partly fear — fear of it's power to destroy, to bury civilizations without a thought, to be at once capable of nourishing and poisoning a living thing. Water hides things, things that I have never seen and that are in reality mostly small and harmless, but in my imagination tear my flesh from my bones. There are things that inject me with poison, wrap themselves around my body and drag me under. Maybe water is sentient and influences it's inhabitants to bring me to it, under it, so that it can fill me through my mouth, fill my lungs, fill my stomach, fill my organs and veins and cells and skull, completing itself in my body.
I knew you before I saw you. Maybe I have it all wrong and it was the water that brought you to me. Maybe you and I were made of the same dust all along, and every tiny influence in both our lives was pushing us, driving us to one another, a strange duprass that would only be complete when we again became one. Bad luck for you this time 'round, though by now I shouldn't wonder that your dust is out of me and being slowly reassembled, processed, reconditioned, trained, and charged with finding me again. In two years or seventy. This is the root of the fear, this is why I will never cease to shudder at the murky water, never stop looking over my shoulder. Because dust comes around.
Yet every morning I fill my body as full as I can stand. The cool, domesticated water that runs from my tap seems lifeless in comparison. The only things in this water are too small for me to see, and the city officials assure me that there are very few. I cleanse my body with it, from crown to heel, every day. I let it run and run and run with rarely a thought of the source from which it comes, or the journey it takes therefrom to caress my body, or the journey it takes after leaving my body, laden with my filth and guilt and shame and lies and lusts and blood and filth and trusts and crimes and secrets and hate and hurt and self and scum and fear and death and filth and filth and flesh and dirt and rust and it is endless. And endless. Next I boil it for tea and fill my body with more, cursing as I scald my mouth, but continuing to drink, and considering the hypocrisy of the act. I wash my hands six times every day (and grit and guilt and sex and trust). I rinse my mouth, I cool a burn, I wash vegetables, I water the houseplants, I thin broth, I steam my body, I pour a glass and cool it with more of itself, frozen. I fill my body.
How I abuse it. With callous indignance I assert myself over it and offer nothing in thanks or return. A father or mother or wife or brother or friend would never stand such treatment. It is no wonder I fear it when I encounter it in the wild and am alone. It is no wonder I cannot look it in the eye or trust it. I deserve every type of watery death and watery horror and watery grave. And even so, when that time comes I will resist with all my might, crying out the injustice of my abuse.
I found you in the water and for a time you were mine and we were together. I unwrapped your ferns and tasted your flesh and would not share it. I bragged about my prowess and skill and I never once gave thanks to you and I am sorry for that.
Water has always instilled wonder in me. It is partly fear — fear of it's power to destroy, to bury civilizations without a thought, to be at once capable of nourishing and poisoning a living thing. Water hides things, things that I have never seen and that are in reality mostly small and harmless, but in my imagination tear my flesh from my bones. There are things that inject me with poison, wrap themselves around my body and drag me under. Maybe water is sentient and influences it's inhabitants to bring me to it, under it, so that it can fill me through my mouth, fill my lungs, fill my stomach, fill my organs and veins and cells and skull, completing itself in my body.
I knew you before I saw you. Maybe I have it all wrong and it was the water that brought you to me. Maybe you and I were made of the same dust all along, and every tiny influence in both our lives was pushing us, driving us to one another, a strange duprass that would only be complete when we again became one. Bad luck for you this time 'round, though by now I shouldn't wonder that your dust is out of me and being slowly reassembled, processed, reconditioned, trained, and charged with finding me again. In two years or seventy. This is the root of the fear, this is why I will never cease to shudder at the murky water, never stop looking over my shoulder. Because dust comes around.
Yet every morning I fill my body as full as I can stand. The cool, domesticated water that runs from my tap seems lifeless in comparison. The only things in this water are too small for me to see, and the city officials assure me that there are very few. I cleanse my body with it, from crown to heel, every day. I let it run and run and run with rarely a thought of the source from which it comes, or the journey it takes therefrom to caress my body, or the journey it takes after leaving my body, laden with my filth and guilt and shame and lies and lusts and blood and filth and trusts and crimes and secrets and hate and hurt and self and scum and fear and death and filth and filth and flesh and dirt and rust and it is endless. And endless. Next I boil it for tea and fill my body with more, cursing as I scald my mouth, but continuing to drink, and considering the hypocrisy of the act. I wash my hands six times every day (and grit and guilt and sex and trust). I rinse my mouth, I cool a burn, I wash vegetables, I water the houseplants, I thin broth, I steam my body, I pour a glass and cool it with more of itself, frozen. I fill my body.
How I abuse it. With callous indignance I assert myself over it and offer nothing in thanks or return. A father or mother or wife or brother or friend would never stand such treatment. It is no wonder I fear it when I encounter it in the wild and am alone. It is no wonder I cannot look it in the eye or trust it. I deserve every type of watery death and watery horror and watery grave. And even so, when that time comes I will resist with all my might, crying out the injustice of my abuse.
I found you in the water and for a time you were mine and we were together. I unwrapped your ferns and tasted your flesh and would not share it. I bragged about my prowess and skill and I never once gave thanks to you and I am sorry for that.
Comments