Oct 5: Tonight a honeybee in
winter, deep, deep, curled inside this cell, this frozen cell made of,
of what? I don’t have the science for it, the words, maybe saliva
and then something; something is mixed inside the body and formed: a
perfect octagon. Sometimes my wings feel like dry leaves tumbling in
the wind. So brittle. This disconnection, a few inches distant, whispering.
Where is the hive? I can’t hear its breathing. Alone in a community
is truly alone. Out there is Sweden, outside a hole in a thicket near
an underpass. I dream of sleet, snow, rain, fog. Short days, long nights.
Very long nights. They sting.
Oct 11: Hard rain, and a soft
song on the radio.
Oct 19: My fingers, the way
they tap-tap-tap. The way my knee hops when I cross my legs. My ankle
flexes. I’ve got this thing inside, this energy. I want to do everything
now, this very second. My fingers tingle. My breasts. My lungs are too
small for the breaths I take. I can’t explain. I have a thousand letters
to open, letters I’ve been waiting for, am excited for, but then this
few minutes to read them. And the unread? As if never written. How many
thoughts will I never give in reply? A friend of mine says he despises
the library: it stinks of death to him, all the books he will never
open. How many kisses will I decline? How many empty stages stand
silent? My chest hurts with all of this, this fluttering pressure. Or
is it scratching? I’ve got this animal inside, and I am scared, overwhelmed,
because what if it ends, all of me ends, before I identify this animal,
before I understand how to use it, what it’s here for, what it means;
before I let this animal run free?
Nov 14: I do not want to call
it dreaming. More a dull thrashing, as alcohol dreams are never vibrant,
never telling, or even remembered. Only a soreness of the body, as if
after swimming, or sex. Only a wedge of puffiness, shadowy half moons
beneath my eyes. Only a stirring of self disgust—with no known cause!
Only an effect. Alcohol dreams are wasted dreams. One afternoon I awake
wedged between a toilet and a dripping wall. I have on my clothing and
a damp parka; my body sweated dry. And then a small wound in the shape
of a question mark in the center of my left palm. All of this, and the
strange words “Mice in the flour! Mice in the flour!”—they fill
my head, all morning, yet I recall nothing.
Nov 18: Spongy ticking in my
ears. Recurring? Roll of the rain.
Nov 20: Birds. So many varieties
of birds. There is a method of holding a bird in hand. You must press;
cradle the feathers with an exact pressure. Apply too little, and it
will flinch, peck, flail, twist from your fingers, and fly away. A bird’s
bones are hollow. Its organs are light and tiny, as needed for flight.
Its heart doesn’t so much beat, as hums. Apply too much pressure,
and it explodes.
Dec 23: They do not please
me, my dreams, but I tell them. They are true. A field of children doing
the hop-run-hop they do, their voices sparkling out. And then they leap
up, higher, twist and change, into butterflies, thousand upon thousand
butterflies. Worms, shimmering worms, with wings. They eat the grasses
with open mouths. They eat the flowers. They eat the root and the thorn
and the blue from the sky. They eat time, which I mean as everything.
They smell of black pepper and rotting peach. Pulp and grab and smash
and cry and cabbage green juices—they smother me. I fall consumed.
I feel a tapping on my shoulder. A drop of rain? The lid of the sky
cracks into nine distinct sections. A glazed darkness rushes down, a
mass of spots, edges, things. It isn’t rain. It is butterflies.
Dec 26: I dream a man walks
into my bedroom, ties me to a chair, and then leaves me alone, untouched.
