Justin Blaney's Blog, page 42

113 you would tire of my touchiness

113
you would tire of my touchiness
so often would i need you
you would tire of i love you
so endlessly would i say these words to you

All my books are free forever including, Where Whispers Willow, a collection of 100 reverie, musings and lingering dreams.

 

239 will you choose the zebra, the elephant, the unicorn, the lion

239
will you choose the zebra, the elephant, the unicorn, the lion
or a new creature, entirely of your imagination
or will you ride at all
with this ticket to the carousel

All my books are free forever including, Where Whispers Willow, a collection of 100 reverie, musings and lingering dreams.

 

109 i bought my sixteen year old daughter a car for christmas

109

i bought my sixteen year old daughter a car for christmas
the question first asked by all who hear the story was did i put a big red ribbon on it
thank you lexus commercials
this is now the expectation of a loving father but those ribbons are hard to find and harder still to assemble according to the reviews on amazon
so we settled for a dozen balloons
at least they were red
the brotherhood of fathers who have watched daughters disappear around the bend of a neighborhood corner, completing the transition from diapers to duplos to driving, share this experience of numb disbelief, that this creature who once fit in my right hand, who napped on my chest during saturday football games, who only ever wanted an american girl doll from santa, is now driving to the mall with three giggling friends and a vague promise to not overspend my credit limit
and so i sit on the porch, seemingly with no other choice but to adopt a rocking chair life where wondering whether i forgot to write the number for the motor club in her journal has become life’s chiefest concern
never is a house more quiet than in the moments after a child drives away
and i laugh with friends about how nice it is to have someone eager to pick up cans of tomato paste from the grocery store, but most of me wishes i could take her for a walk to get ice cream, or for a bike ride through fall’s leaves after just taking off the training wheels
and i realize for the first time i’m thinking about grand children, and finding a path toward the vicarious life, and trying not to think about how many more goodbyes must happen between now and then

All my books are free forever including, Where Whispers Willow, a collection of 100 reverie, musings and lingering dreams.

 

222 no one has the patience for long poems these days even two lines is too many

222
no one has the patience for long poems these days
even two lines is too many

All my books are free forever including, Where Whispers Willow, a collection of 100 reverie, musings and lingering dreams.

 

41 the soul of a jealous lover is a lair

41

the soul of a jealous lover is a lair
where walls are lined with chambered prayers
cocked words and ticking fears
he goes there every night
chained to the bed
that transforms from feather to stone
whenever he sleeps alone

rest is not known to the jealous soul
dreams are for lucky fools who haven’t shared
a heart paired with another
who aren’t tortured for the joy of pain
interrogated by the endlessly dripping rain
of morning after syrup coated stacks with another man

sleep’s ransom is the facts
stirred into coffee brewed stiff as 3am
they checked in to that b&b off yesler
fucked first thing
then had dinner over flirting
she said, we’re married, i didn’t mean to hurt you
it’s no consolation for those reduced
to fornication
tangled in affair
and forced to share sweating bodies doubled in sheets across town

so the sinner scrawls his pain down
pen flying fast across the screen
praying it makes the seconds seem
to pass until she comes again
and life after death begins

All my books are free forever including, Where Whispers Willow, a collection of 100 reverie, musings and lingering dreams.

 

Last Night’s Farewell, Chapter 19

i often think i can’t do this anymore 

but then realize what choice do i have?

<>

Smith is a dark, woody pub with wall mounted antlers and glimmering beer taps, as suited for Sunday brunch as casual drinks on Friday night. Tonight was neither. So the mood was muted, like too many staff for too few patrons. For some reason it creeped me out, like they were all too eager to serve. Too eager to listen in to a juicy conversation. Why was this place so empty for dinner? Why couldn’t some more people show up?

Elliot and I arrived early, and walked in separately. He took a seat across the narrow room from me, his back to the wall, and ordered a Manny’s. He gave me a I’m-here-watching-over-you smile. My guardian angel… who I’m sleeping with. OK, maybe not an angel. But something close. Too close to perfection to be real. I found myself often wondering if he was real. I pinched him to make sure he flinched. I needed him to touch me, just to feel that his body had the warmth of life in it. And he was right there. Ready to save me if I needed him.

Lysander spotted me while talking to the host. He waved and joined me. My body felt like stone, cemented in place as he sat down.

He sighed. “It’s good to see you. You look well.”

Fortunately the waiter asked if we wanted anything, and saved me from having to respond. Lysander ordered two whiskey and gingers.

“You’re having two?” I asked.

He looked confused. “I thought you might want one.”

After all this time he still didn’t even know what I liked to drink. “You know I hate whiskey.”

“Let me get you something else.”

He looked at the menu. “What do you want?”

“Wine is fine. Syrah if they have it.” I’d told him a dozen times that my favorite wine is Syrah. He talked got up to talk to the bartender. I looked for Elliot, but he was gone. I panicked. Lysander sat back down with me.

“They only have Merlot. Is there much difference?”

“Yes, but that’s fine. Thank you.” The tag on felt forced. I don’t know why I was trying to be civil. But that’s what I did. I was the peacemaker. I was the one who he could pick a fight with, and it was up to me to show him how he was being an ass, even though it hurt like hell to hear the things he’d say to me and all I wanted to do was cry in my closet.

Lysander looked over his shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

I shook my head to dismiss the question, fearing my voice would give my worry away. Then I saw him, returning from the washroom. I tried not to show relief. Elliot made an apologetic face at me.

“I’m glad you came,” Lysander said.

This felt too much like a business meeting. I thought about how in love we were once, and how distant we now were. Now we were like polite strangers with each other at 7 in the evening at an empty pub. Except I still wasn’t sure what happened that night, and I didn’t trust him. Even if I did dream the attack, I couldn’t trust this man ever again. I took a drink of the wine as it arrived at the table. “I just don’t see what the point of meeting is.”

“I thought we were still working on our marriage?”

“Not after what happened with Huma.”

“I don’t know what you think happened, but whatever it was, I promise you I would never hurt you.”

“How do you explain this lump then?” I leaned forward and showed him the back of my head.

He touched me. I winced.

“I don’t see anything.”

I felt it. The swelling had gone down, but it still hurt.

“You’re not going to convince me this didn’t happen.” Already I was thinking of a cigarette. Except thinking wasn’t a strong enough word. I needed one bad. I fidgeted with my purse.

“But Huma wasn’t even there last night.”

“I heard you guys.”

“I don’t know what you heard, but it wasn’t us. Huma left as soon as you went to bed. I slept on the couch to give you some space. I went to work early the next morning and you were still asleep when I left.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I came here to tell you something. I think it’s necessary now.”

I folded my arms, waiting.

“I didn’t want to tell you because I thought it would hurt too much. Who I’m having an affair with. It isn’t Huma. Which is why it’s impossible that you heard me with her that night. I’ve never touched her.”

“Who was it then?”

“It was Danny.”

I felt the blood clog in my veins.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen. I hate myself for doing that with your best friend.”

“It was never Huma?” I heard myself say it, but it felt like I was listening to someone else talking. This didn’t fit with anything. It felt wrong, like my sixth sense was screaming at me. This wasn’t right.

“No. Of course not. I’m not even attracted to Huma.”

“Then you only fuck my attractive friends.”

“That came out wrong.”

I wanted to call Danny and scream. I wanted to dig my fingernails into her face. Fuck I hated her. How could she do this to me. And then she had drinks with me after? And pretended nothing happened? And told me how Lysander loved me? So she was jealous he wanted me instead of her, that was it. What a total bitch. What a slut. And then I had a picture of me and Elliot in his hotel. I was just like her, wasn’t I? Except it was different. Elliot wasn’t married. And not to my best friend. This was different. This was betrayal. I stood up at the table. The chair screeched.

“Where are you going?” Lysander said.

“To find Danny.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You think I care what you think?”

“Please, just sit down for a minute.”

I sat, leaned in closer to him so the staff wouldn’t hear me, not to save his reputation but because I’d be too ashamed to be the one he cheated on. “I heard someone having sex in our house. Did you have Danny over?”

“We’re through. I promise. Haven’t seen her in, I don’t know, several days.”

“Someone hit me in the head. I woke with a bloody skull and the girls’ room was all fucked up.”

“I don’t know Adela. I think it must have been a dream.”

“You keep saying that, but how can I trust anything you say?” And even as I said this, I wondered if the story about Danny was true, or just another smoke screen.

“I had pictures to prove all of this.”

“Show me?”

“I told you, they’re gone. You deleted them.”

“I don’t even know how to do that.”

“Someone did.” I held my head in my hands, feeling a terrible headache coming. I finished the wine and tried to get the attention of the waiter for another.

“Maybe that was a dream too. I mean, if you don’t have the pictures, couldn’t you have dreamed that you took them?”

“Stop saying it was a dream. It wasn’t a fucking dream.”

“There isn’t any bruise on your head.”

“There was. Someone saw it, I have a witness. And it still hurts.”

“Who saw it.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“The pain could be anything. I don’t know. You know you get migraines.”

I hated him for this. He had an answer for everything. And the problem was, he was convincing me even though I was resisting with all of me. He always did that to me. He could make me feel so stupid. He won every argument. The only thing I had for me was Elliot. He’d seen the bump. It had to have been something. I caught Elliot’s eye. He mouthed the words, “You ok?” I wondered if I could get his attention and meet in the washroom. I had to ask him about the bump. What did he really see. Could it have been something like falling from the bed in my sleep? Could it have been anything other than getting hit by a caught lover?

My phone lit with a message from my mom:

Darling. We heard about you and Lysander. We’re flying out for a few days, see if we can help.

“Fuck, did you tell my parents about all of this?”

“Of course not.”

“Well they found out, and they’re coming to Seattle.”

“What are they coming for?”

“To fix our marriage.”

“Maybe it will help?” He tried to take my hand, but I pulled away from him.

Somehow Lysander and my mom got along. She always loved him. He was attractive and ambitious and knew how to make her think “he was the sweetest boy in the world.” Sometimes I would walk in on him on the phone with her, laughing about some private joke. He’d look at me, a little guilt in his eyes, but hidden beneath a fake veneer of supposed trying to befriend the in-laws. He get upset that I didn’t like his relationship with her, he’d say I should be happy about it because most guys don’t get along with their mother-in-laws. But they were so close I felt like I was the odd one out. And I was the daughter. Aren’t moms supposed to love their own daughters more then then men their daughter’s marry?

“I should go,” I said.

“Please, just stay for dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.” I looked for Elliot. He was putting some money on the table, seeming ready to follow me out.

“Adela, I’m worried about you.”

“You keep saying that, but I just don’t believe you.”

“What did I do to deserve this?”

“You fucked my best friend.”

“Besides that. I mean, I know what I did is beyond horrible, but I’m sorry about it. I want to fix things. I’ll never see her again.”

“Something happened that night. I don’t know what, but something bad happened.”

“Let’s go see a doctor together. I know a good one. We can explain it to him.”

“I don’t want to see any more of your doctors.”

“They’re just trying to help.”

“Well they don’t help. They just prescribe more drugs that don’t do anything. I’m sick of medicating myself to be acceptable to you. I want someone who wants me without needing their mind fixed.”

“Sometimes people need help… there’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

“Goodbye Lysander.” I left and didn’t look back, just hoping Elliot would see and come. I watched for him from around the corner and called when he appeared a minute later on the street. He hugged me tight. I kissed him. And hugged him tighter. His arms were a fortress around me. I wanted his protection. I wanted to trust him, even though I knew something wasn’t entirely safe about him. He was the safest place in my life, and I had to take what I could get.

“What happened?”

“My mom is flying in from Dallas.”

“What for?”

I shook my head, not wanting to talk about it. Not right then. But I knew exactly what mom was coming for. She’d never let me and Lysander split up. It would look too bad to all her judgmental Christian friends. She was coming to give me a talking to, like I was 12 and caught kissing the pastor’s boy behind the church again. And all the things my mom used to tell me, the words she taught me to recite to myself in the mirror, came back in a flood. How I was never good enough. Too fat or too skinny. Too lazy or too eager. Too smart for my own good or too dumb to know any better. Too much of a hermit or too much of a flirt. Who knows what my mom would do to make me miserable enough to stay with Lysander. I had to be strong. I had to stand up to her. And I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to.

<>

Complete list of chapters here: Last Night’s Farewell

I’m hoping this is an interactive experience. Comments, ideas, and feedback are welcome.

The best way to get each new chapter is to subscribe to email updates below

40 the cost of your kisses

40
the cost of your kisses
are measured in misses
of time pausing endless monologue
a lazy appeal swirled in pale
fog creeping in to steal this world away

the softest measure most precious
by candlelight and stillness
lips blushing my face
traced in dim garden night
plated sterling with pillows and lace

thoughts blur superfluous
as color is chased from all that surrounds us
abounding in faded quivers
of falling leaf whispers
and thieves charming heartbeats from sighs

this muse makes me too weak to rhyme
must i choose the left cheek or right?
for your lips say don’t speak, my love
just lay me down close to my mistress
where i may drown in the prose of her kisses

All my books are free forever including, Where Whispers Willow, a collection of 100 reverie, musings and lingering dreams.

 

Last Night’s Farewell, Chapter 18

riding the old road to fall city with the sun glancing through branches and white trunks of half barren trees reflecting in the rear view mirrors, I slip through lingering red leaves floating on pockets of cool air hovering low in the gullies of a highway that refuses to be made straight

the scent of pine and living room fires wash over me, and everything good in this world seems within reach

like this old highway doesn’t just lead to that little town below the fall, but to anywhere

to that place where I stay up late with a new friend, talking of the laughter we shared over breakfast, or dinner the evening before, and making plans for the laziest of weekends with nothing we’d rather do than this exact moment

<>

While Lysander was at the work the next day, Elliot went with me to my house to pack up a few things. I didn’t want them to run into each other, but I feared seeing Lysander alone more. We hadn’t come up with any ideas for how to deal with him and Huma for what they did to me. Well, I had ideas, but I didn’t have the guts to say them out loud. I couldn’t even really say them in my head. But I wanted to feel safe from him. Forever. Whatever it took. That’s all I knew.

I squeezed Elliot’s hand tight as I unlocked the door to the apartment building lobby. FedEx packages waited on a table for owners to come home from work. The lights were dim, the decor dated to the 80s and the walls seemed to have a permanent sheen of grime that would never wash away. Either that or we had the worst cleaners in the city.

The hall was silent. No sound of TV’s through the doors as we passed. No screaming children. No waves of dinner spices seeping through the walls—just a sort of damp mold that, like the grimy walls, never went away.

I turned the key in the door to my apartment and pushed it open. Half of me expected to see Lysander waiting there in the armchair, gun in his hand, ready to finish me off. But the living room was empty. I called his name, just to be sure, but there was no answer. I peeked in the kids room on the way to mine. Everything had been cleaned up. The bed was made. The window was shut. The girl’s toys were arranged so perfectly, it was like children didn’t even live there, like I was viewing through a glass wall a Smithsonian recreation of a 21st century apartment.

I shuddered, wondering at the lengths Lysander and Huma must have gone through to make it look this way. For what? What were they trying to convince me of? That it didn’t happen? That I was crazy? Elliot found a suitcase in my closet and we stuffed it together, throwing things in without thought of how they fit or if they wrinkled. Elliot was zipping up the suitcase when my phone rang. Lysander’s face smiled at me.

“You should answer,” he said.

“Why?”

“Just to hear what he has to say. Don’t you want to know what his story is?” Elliot went to the door. “I’ll be in here if you need me.”

It rang twice more before I touched the green phone icon.

“Adela?”

Office noise and static filled my silence.

“Hello?” he said, “Adela?”

“I can’t believe you have the balls to call me,” I said.

“Oh Adela,” he said. “I’m so glad you’re ok.”

“You’re glad I’m ok?”

“Of course.”

“After you hit me?”

He paused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Is that you cleaned up the room? You want me to believe this didn’t happen?”

“Adela, listen—“

“Just stay away from me.”

“Please—“

“I swear, I’ll have a court order served to you in the middle of your staff meeting.”

“I just don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Lysander, I heard you fucking Huma. I came in to confront you and you hit me over the head.”

“Adela, listen, Huma left after you went to sleep. She said she didn’t feel comfortable staying.”

“I have pictures. The kids room was all torn up. I have a bloody lump on my head.”

“I don’t know what happened. Send me the pictures and let me help you make sense of this.”

A terrible feeling grew in me as I checked my phone, like somehow I knew they wouldn’t be there. The phone shook in my hand as I flicked through the folders. They were gone. All of the photos were gone. Lysander must have done something. “Are you fucking kidding me? You hacked my phone?”

“I don’t even know how I would do that.”

I searched the trash folder for the photos. It was empty, with a message that said the trash had been emptied just a few hours earlier.

“I had photos. And now they’re gone. Where did they go Lysander?”

“Adela, I don’t know how to ask this, but have you been taking your prescriptions?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Just tell me you’re taking them”

“Yes. I’m taking the fucking drugs.”

“Adela, let me come find you.”

“I’m never seeing you again.”

“Please just give me one chance. If you don’t like what I have to say, I’ll let you go. I won’t talk to you again.”

“There’s no way I would feel safe seeing you.”

“What about in a public place? The restaurant on 15th. What’s it called, the one you love?”

Of course he wouldn’t remember. “Smith.”

“Yeah. Smith. We can meet there. Tonight.”

“Hold on.” I held the phone to my chest and found Elliot. “He wants to meet me.”

“I think you should?”

“Are you serious?”

“I’ll come too, watch you from another table and make sure nothing happens. He might let something slip, something we can use against him.”

I thought for a moment, then put the phone back to my hear. “I’ll meet you tonight at 7. But after this I never want to see you again. If you try anything, I’ll make sure you never see the kids again.”

“I promise to make this right, whatever it takes.”

I hung up and turned to Elliot.

He took my hand. “I won’t leave your sight. I promise.”

We grabbed my coat, the suitcase and a paper sack of toiletries and left. I wondered how the girls were doing and thought about stopping by. But I didn’t want them to see Elliot, and knew they were happy with Aunt Bettie. Elliot drove, and I messaged Aunt Bettie to make sure they were behaving. She replied quickly that they were just having some peanut butter and banana sandwiches and having the time of their lives.

The pills I took for anxiety rolled out of my purse. I looked at them, wobbling there at my feet. I picked it up quickly, trying to hide what I was doing from Elliot. I don’t know why I felt so much shame in it. Lots of people have anxiety. It wasn’t depression. I just get these panic attacks. But the drugs, they didn’t seem to help much. I wondered why Lysander was always so concerned about me taking them. And now he was trying to convince me that I’d never been hit on the head, that Huma hadn’t even slept over. But I had pictures. And Elliot had seen the bruise. I know I didn’t dream it. I felt myself rubbing the label of the little yellow bottle. The tiny white pills rattling around inside. The pills Lysander wanted me to keep taking even though I never felt any difference. The pills he always picked up for me because he didn’t want me to forget to them. He seemed to care about me. He’d always been good to me. Even though he forgot so much, the little things like what wine I liked, what restaurants I loved, how I only ever wanted a kind note on my birthday and yet he tried so hard, in his simple way. Things like this, like trying to help me with my anxiety, he was always willing to help.

Could he really have hit me? Was he even capable of that? Maybe there was another explanation. Maybe I fell. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around him changing so much, so quickly. Is it possible to live with someone for years and not know them at all? Wives of serial killers always say they never knew. Is that what I am? A naive wife of an evil man? Or a confused, hurting woman who drinks too much and takes pills for depression. How can I not even know who I am?

<>

Complete list of chapters here: Last Night’s Farewell

I’m hoping this is an interactive experience. Comments, ideas, and feedback are welcome.

The best way to get each new chapter is to subscribe to email updates below

9 things I’m thankful for

Things I’m thankful for

9

your smile

your sincere questions

the eagerness of your long staring eyes

your eternal face never aging, saved for only me

the delight you find in gently twirling leaves

your sea of emotions, raging and still

how you gasp and cover your mouth when i take too many pills

how you squeal in surprise when i grab you from behind

how perfectly our bodies intertwine

your love of quietness and discovering everyday moments of bliss

the touch of your hand and how you pull them away when i try to look closer at the scar on your thumb

your generous laugh

your words, whispered and written

for long winter walks in brightly knit mittens

the pictures you send of silly moments or intimate grins

your soft and hungry lips

the soft curve of your hips

the fiery warmth of your heart and deeper insides

and the drunk high of being held by your thighs

but most of all, the burn of your eternal, never changing love

and how you allow me to love you in return

All my books are free forever including, Where Whispers Willow, a collection of 100 reverie, musings and lingering dreams.

 

110 the dogwoods and magnolias

110

the dogwoods and magnolias a block of petaluma boulevard burst with pink and white fireworks frozen in a single gasp of mid march sun

people walk slowly behind strollers, with dogs who sniff my feet as they pass

a woman exits the bakery i’m sitting in front of and is greeted by a man in an old ford pickup

“hi doris”

“picking up a pie for the grandkids”

a ferrari rumbles past decaled with the words city sports rentals so tourists may have the opportunity to reserve verifiable validation of success by the hour

the cars go slow, eager to pause for street crossers, more than enough to keep the cafe’s, pubs, bakeries and pizzerias busy,

there seems to be a town-wide cute shop competition, and no one wants to finish second

a breeze carries a flurry of petals, another layer for the pebbled sidewalks

and i sip my coffee slowly

such is the way here

All my books are free forever including, Where Whispers Willow, a collection of 100 reverie, musings and lingering dreams.