the sub, the alternate, the also-ran

 

 

It is in my medical charts that I have “an artistic temperament.” I take this to mean that I can be a bit fragile, raw nerved. I also find it hilarious. I don’t think that is medical terminology. I think it is a warning sticker: handle with care. I’ll take it. I need it.

 

I wrote this in a parking lot the other day:

 

LESSONS LEARNED IN TIME AND SPACE

 

It’s a rough world; you’d better grow a shell.

 

Something has to shield those raw nerves

Those murmurations of imagined pleasures and weeping wounds.

 

The sky may seem soft, each swaying leaf an effortless, velvet hello.

But when we fall

We fall

Full speed,

Bare-legged on rough asphalt

Gravel embedded in our tender flesh

Pockmarking knobbed knees and smooth cushion heels of palms

Skin giving way, crinoline crepe buckling

Into tiny vellum accordion strips —

After which the blood will bloom

Mirror the burn core of the sunset

The brightest red of the gaudiest dinner plate dahlia.

 

The red deepens to wine

The shell forms

You’ll want to pick it off

It will feel so good

Bit by bit

Little brown pieces

Inside clear halos of fresh and living skin

Others will do their best to break that human patina, too;

You’ll be tempted.

 

There is always a lure:

the sinister or blasé

or selfishly lonely or plain bored

masquerading as the genuine.

That is an eternal truth.

 

Remember:

Their actions are truths but their intentions are not.

 

Leave it be.

It’s going to happen again and again.

You need that scar.

You need that shell.

The shell is all we’ll have left.