motel 75
"four skinny trees. they are the only ones who understand me. i am the only one who understands them. four who do not belong here but are here. four ragedy excuses planted by the city. their strength is secret. they send ferocious roots beneath the ground. they grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth that never quit their anger. this is how they keep. let one forget his reason for being, they'd all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. keep, keep, keep, trees say when i sleep. they teach. when i am too sad to keep keeping, when i am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is i look at trees. when there is nothing left to look at on this street. four who grew despite concrete. four who reach and do not forget to reach. four whose only reason is to be and be..."
-the house on mango street, by sandra cisneros...
if i close my eyes with all my mustered strength, i can see what the inside of my eyelids look like. they are painted a dark red with verticle white lines and small, pale red dots. i wonder what sort of god spent the time to make sure i can see something alive, whenever i feel so dead i seal my eyes tight.
but eventually, eyes always have to be opened. the lull of tear dripping, self pitying, closed eye desperation stops. and all you can do is breathe. and breathe, i do well. i open my eyes, and i breathe. i'm wonderful. in through the mouth, perhaps in a yawn or a slight sigh, and out in a rush. small puffs in and out, warm air, cold air, through my nose. the gasping little breaths that sleep brings about, with the dreams that are sadness to escape. the calm, slow inhale, exhale, with quiet meditation not to lose one's place. i breathe like an expert. i breathe because i have never known anything else. i breathe because i cannot cry. i breathe because everything else makes me feel dead. breathing is living. perhaps it's all that there is. perhaps breath is not what sustains that we do, but all that is meant to do... breath to keep the trees keeping...
breathing is all that i am sure of. breathing and leaving. breathing, living, and leaving. breathing and living. leaving is sometimes a trial or a task or a mission i am not able to make. a trip. a stay. a stay away.
the dotted pictures on the eyelids. to the forcing light floods that come after. to the breathing. the breathing. the breathing. to the living. to the leaving. to the luaghter.
as one learns how to breathe all over again, one also must not forget to learn to laugh. any kind will do. the ones that fill every table in taco bell, with the "look at me" excitement of the birth of a stain. sitcom silliness with the recorded chuckle of the man with twelve voice. the quiet wind chime laughs. the smileless laughs. the excited giggles of a ten year old secret teller in the backseat of an import sudan grandpa bought last year. the delighted shrieks escaping the baby that found a stupidcat in her backyard. the nervous laughter kneeling at the side of a car with the knowledge that friend will never be seen again. broken laughter.
breathe.
i saw it coming. it's a lie to say i was blindsided by the prospect leaving would not be a choice. i always knew, i never admitted. it was easy to find escape plans, like standing behind your motel 75 room door, looking to find the nearest fire escape while he's in the bathroom. looking for the stairs that will take you away and land you on the pavement of safety. unless the fire starts with that iron, tucked near the metal bar to hang your dresses and your suits that cannot be wrinkled. unless the fire starts with that iron between your bed and your door to take you to that nearest fire escape. because when the fire is in the path out, it's very easy to be consumed.
but there's always that other choice. isn't there? the choice of the window you can throw your suitcase through. the choice of jumping through the ripped screen and jagged glass. the choice of falling far to the ground to become broken and bloody. the choice to fall far below where you're already at, for the hope of a hospital. the hope of not being burned alive. the hope of avoiding the crackle of the end.
jumping is danger. danger is excitement. excitement. excitement is taking a deep breath with the hope of letting it out later but the chance that you won't. the chance that you won't.
leaving without the escape plan means there's a chance that you won't. a chance you won't escape. a chance you won't succeed. a chance that every plan to be made, concieved, acted out, will never come to be. but, what else is there. the danger.
danger. excitement. breath.
the chance that breath will never escape these lips again, will never see the dream movie with the new stadium seating playing before the screen of red eyelids again. the chance of nothingness. on being and nothingness a philosopher of existentialism, a philosopher of france, a philosopher called jean-paul once named a book. my being is breathing. leaving, and living, and laughing. this is my being. my nothingness is the the burns that set you in cool dirt, with the skin still to warm to be put out, even after it's stiff and tired and cold to the touch of other's fingers. being and nothingness.
the people that own the motel tell you there is but one way out. the people whose motel it is want you to leave one way. the people that own you for a few nights, under the guise of your ownership of them.
the dangerous laughing excitment of leaving breathing only has a small chance once your locked in that orange room. and that is the red blood chance of falling through poking pointed glass.
the other chance is not a chance. the other chance is the end. the other chance has not the excitement or limited painful hope. it is the black burnt end.
jump.
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