divine dagger

Last night I awoke alone in bed, in my square room, in 4 a.m. darkness. The horizontal lines of light cast by the window shades have become so distracting that I sewed some curtains. Otherwise, I'd stay awake far too long waiting for car headlights to launch a phantasmagoric puppet show across the wall, it's very entertaining. 

Then: my muscles are huge, I'm a bodybuilding protein pumping steroid humping animal. I watch as, cornered in a meadow, a young rabbit crouches in prairie grass. He is strong, he can swim, he is friendly with moles and squirrels. Something has found him here, in the tall golden field. Blinking, twitching, breathing near the dirt. I understand that the rabbit's brother collects smooth stones, pebbles, when the stream bed curls up under drought. The shelf at home is lined with these talismans; they are all given names and kissed goodnight. The men in their hats pulled low rarely understand things like this, that at home there is a shelf, that things must be kissed goodnight. I've got a song stuck in my head, always have something like that stuck in my head. Moose can't really sing, can't really dance. The men watch me from the bog, watch me from their blinds, from their boats, hats always pulled so low, peering down cylindrical tubes. 

Someone pokes me in the eye, "hey that's my eye, stop it."

Awake, I tie up the curtains, I lie in my bed for an hour, and watch two flies circle, it's very entertaining. On my to-do list, I have written "avoid the slow spiral"; the flies didn't get the message. 

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I am staring at the profile of a squid suspended in a tank, "my friend would like to order the calamari". The squid once had a dream of being a birthday party noisemaker, one of those paper tubes that unfurls when you blow into it. The squid listens to many conversations: they drool gibberish sentences, Latin phrases, big biting words. The squid thinks: do you know what those mean? do you know you sound like an idiot? do you know I'm very alone?

Recently, at a party, someone told me I was "a good spectator". I went upstairs, sat in a bean bag chair in the dark for 10 minutes, left the party without saying bye. I walked home, humming a Liz Phair song. I have this superstition that if I hum to myself while walking alone at night, I won't be kidnapped or followed (you've gotta have fear in your heart). 

I have a dream about a shrimp cocktail joke: One time a squid invited some shrimps to a cocktail party... thank god the shrimp declined the invitation. When I was younger I would submit captions to The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest and wanted to be a cartoonist for the local newspaper. 

That morning it takes two hours to peel an orange, eat it. I leave the apartment (finally), and a freeway billboard shouts Silicon Breast Implants Via Belly Button!! I picture myself a wood statue with a light affixed to my back, it curves over my head like an angler fish. The light is bright and shines directly into the middle of my chest very very hard - it's desperate and infantilizing. At an intersection, I watch a rabbit, huddled in some tall weeds, eat something. I can hear him breathing, near the dirt. On the radio, a man who sounds perpetually out of breath explains that to ensure a moose is dead, poke it in the eye and watch for any reaction, "hey, that's my eye, stop it."