Teresa Austin
Last
Rights
The sand couldn't care less about me or my dirty feet, so I run all over the empty beach. It’s the wrong time. Too cold. It’s Autumn. And yet the ocean is always angry. There's nothing pacifying about the Atlantic. It's tortured and never stops tumbling and tossing and thinking about the things that it shouldn't be thinking. I stand here so far from its rage, and I know its thoughts. I have the same thoughts. I am of the ocean. I could walk into its arms right now and disappear forever. And I don't think there's a soul who would know it. I have come to the beach alone. I have driven far so that I can park and walk the wooden planks where in summer families and foreigners love to stumble and shuffle, dropping their greasy french fries and letting their popcorn go to the birds. There are seagulls even in the cold. They are the homeless who sleep on the sides of the roads when the roads are drained of cars. These birds know the anger of the sea. They know the anger of the cold wind that’s forcing its way through the burden of night. These birds are angry, but they keep it buttoned down. I could feed the birds with the bits and parts of myself. I'm sure they would scavenge me If I simply lie down and stretch my arms and legs far enough so that the middle of me would pop open and sing to them and they would be delighted to sing right back. But I won't do that. I can't give them that satisfaction. I am saving the feast of me for the ocean. You see, I have come here today to swim. I am going to move my arms and legs through the bitter water and propel myself into my own deep sleep. Because I cannot sleep anywhere else. I have been awake for too long. The last time I slept, the lifeguards were here. The children were digging holes big enough to bury their own bodies. And the seagulls were winning. I could hear them then as I hear them now. They are a tabernacle. A choir of sinless monks. They are singing the ambient rusty songs of God. As we all know, God will eat you just as soon as show you love. And these birds don't show me love. They didn't when I was a child. When they frightened me as they snatched the cotton candy from my tiny hands. And yet I could not stop feeding them the pink clouds. I could not stop holding it up for them and watching them descend. They came upon me like a fever of white and gray. And even though my mind was unraveling at such a young age, I was enthralled. Enraptured. As I stood there staring up at them, I could have sworn I heard them murmuring my last rights. When I didn't die, I thought there's nothing that's going to kill me. All these years later I realize how wrong I was. The seagulls like God now ignore me. The ocean will break my tiny body in two. I have come back here because the seagulls don't listen. I can stand here crying and begging, but they won't even turn their soft white heads to watch me pray.
Where Once
There Was
A River
When I drop the bucket down the well, all I hear is the cracking wood against the stone floor. There is no water anymore. The well is dead. And yet I am somehow compelled to crank the handle and bring the bucket back to life. When it surfaces, it leans because its jaw is missing. It is useless. I understand the bucket. I am the bucket. I walk through the wilderness leaning sideways because a part of me is still at the bottom of the well. The well was once vital to the the village. It was the heartbeat. It was the generator. And I could pull the water from my core and wash my hands and face. I could bathe in the blood that I made from the water of the well. And all around me were the homes that I had made, populated by the pieces and the parts of me. In every home there was a voice and a face and a pair of eyes looking out the window. From house to house we could see each other. I could see myself. I did not need a mirror. If I looked carefully and the moon was out, I could see my reflection at the bottom of the well. The skin of water that was there was my mirror. But now I cannot see myself. My eyes grow tired and they forget what they still want to see. And I cannot see the wrinkles and the scars and the pieces of me that are missing. I pretend that I am still the same as I was when I could feel. When I was whole. When I could walk through myself and put my hands into my hands and my feet into my feet and I could stand up and wear myself and be whole. I could be a person. My voice was not creaky. My mouth was not dry. My neck was not dripping from the corners of my jaw. I was young. I could speak to myself and hear myself, and I made sense. Now when I use my voice it is as if I am speaking into a wet sponge. My voice disappears and dries up, and nothing gets said anymore. I toss my words into the broken well, and I hear nothing when they hit the bottom. I spill my sentences and there is nothing left of me but a gaping mouth and two black eyes because I can neither see nor sing. Now the well echoes when the rain cracks the leaves of the trees and reaches down into the cobblestone at least 50 ft. below where once there was a river that fed into the village, but now there is only time blowing leaves into the empty hole.
This New
Language
Somewhere along the the spine of the house, there's a furnace. This was before the war. It's where the children used to play. The room was scraped raw. They kept the things that needed to be kept because one day they thought they might use them again. Maybe that's why she played down here so often. Because she wanted to be kept and be used. She felt she was of no use. To and from school, day after day. Breakfast and dinner. There were days when she felt her tongue slipping away. She would open her mouth to breathe or to eat but there were no words. She heard foreign words. They were the words of her father. He remarked on the news to her mother, but her mother would never reply. Her mother's words were always to her. Reminders. Rules to follow. Actions to honor. People to avoid. But in the cellar, staring into the mouth of the furnace, she could see different words. The hot coals spoke to her in their secret language. They wanted to seduce her. They would recommend horrible crimes. Destruction. Murder. They wanted her to kill the curls in her hair. To paint her nails red. To find the places in the world where people would listen to her. But the furnace warned her that they wouldn't want to hear her speak with words. She should save the words for the fire. She would need to speak to the strangers with the settling of her arms and the crossing of her legs and the adjustments she would make to her tight dress. A dress that could be a furnace. It would keep her warm and heat the people around her. She would wear it like it was fuel. Red hot fuel. The voices in her head would finally be translated. The language would be something that could wrap her mind in the comfort of a shawl or a blanket from the bed of a stranger. And even if he spoke to her in this new language, she wouldn't have to answer him. She could eat whatever she ordered from room service. A room service that would come up as many times as she wanted. Then she would ask him to open the window because it was too goddamn hot in this tiny fleabag hotel room.
Pretending
to Knit
Since you don't remember being born, how can you be sure that it ever happened? This was the thought that sat in the back of her head as she waited at red lights. It's the thought that crossed it's legs as it sat at the top of her skull when she was in line at the bank or folding laundry on her bed. How could she be sure she was here? How could she be sure that this was life? That she was the one folding her underwear and coupling her socks? There have been men, but too often they did not secure her in the idea that she existed. They were like haircuts and polished shoes. They were open mouths with closed eyes, and the moonlight filled up their nostrils as they slept. She would want to question them, but she was afraid. She thought too many questions and they might simply disappear. Because what happens if you ask a hologram to prove that he is real? Wouldn't he be programmed to disappear before he had time to lie? But even without the questions the men would always lie. They were never truthful men. None that she knew at least. And sometimes she would feel like she had just unraveled the last few inches of yarn before she had finished knitting this scarf or the gloves or a sweater vest. Now everything she had done was worse than doing nothing. Because it would never be finished. And she wouldn't know how to stop herself from moving the needles and pretending to knit.
East
I don't know if it's the word coffee or the actual drink that I'm addicted to, but I love both. I look into my coffee and I can see all the years that have fallen behind me like black dominoes. It’s a trick. They were lined up so perfectly, and when one was tipped from the beginning they fell into each other making patterns. I was the pattern. I was the falling dominoes. My body is what the Domino's turned into. And now I am staring into the blackness of my cup of coffee and I don't even remember my name. I can't remember what I look like in the mirrors. I haven't looked in the mirror in a long time. It's like a Jewish death. I've covered them all. But the lights in this coffee shop are bright enough that I can see my reflection in the coffee. I can see my own beady black eyes with the halo of red because I haven't slept. I don't remember sleep. It's like a dream. I get little snatches and pieces of it. I can hold these dreams between my thumb and my forefinger. I can use the dreams to wipe off the stains that I have left on the lip of the coffee cup. But I don't do this because my dreams are wet. They are powerless. They can't absorb anything. When I drown in my sleep, my dreams cannot save me. It is like this cup of coffee. I wrap my hands around it and it is warm for so long but then the warmth disappears. That's what my sleep is like. But it was warm so long ago when the Domino's were being set up. When everything still seemed so clean. But now they are spread out on this small brown table. Some have fallen to the floor and strangers passing by kick them into the corners of the coffee shop. That is my body being bashed and turned into dirt and dust. Like the dust of the first man. And the pain he felt in his side from my birth to where I am now. I am naked in this coffee shop like a pioneer in the garden. And everything keeps falling. I am a mosaic found outside a Greek temple, and the only word that's written there is “east.”