Fiction
part three of three in a series: Beyond Hope
I would stay up all night. I hate rejection. Don’t tell me I didn’t say no. Who were the ones you couldn’t get rid of. Who did you honor and for what. How is a slap for not honoring your mother. You wished for someone else’s. You write again what was the day before. When is the right time to say fuck. Under the circumstances, my eyes are swollen. When you cry everything comes strangely when you’re at a party. What am I trying at. Walk out and come back in? Power is a bizarre circumstance. Are you paying attention. That must be so much of it. Or maybe we have a lot. Who was threatened is eating today’s special. What do you have to eat. You have to eat.
Whose driveway were you sweeping. Go home that’s your business. Go home with your own business. Wipe it off. Handrail without prints all down the wall. Who had to hold themselves up in steep places. Who had balance. Who had something else. Who had nothing. Take a trip and see them all from the bus. See them handing you bags filled with soda. The bag selling friend. He is not for nothing. His epithet is nosegay of hammers. You hadn’t been given an epithet yet. Don’t just say whatever you think of. Say yes. The spider fell into the lake and floated on the water. You saw her float slowly off looking less formidable. She wanted to run on the surface, but floated slowly past where you could save her, then past where you could see her. Don’t say you are tired. Don’t say the word tired. Knockout. Centuries of how we wanted you to galvanize your way. The furnace is burning on your palms, turn them over, the red says Janice, beautiful Janice, your name is a memory trace to your face.
You have been gone for some time. The yard is for you. You divide your collected branches into piles. You run your wheelbarrow between them. You practice throwing your voice, "I’m over here." Nothing is ending the right way. You aren’t forgiven. Your hands fall long and away. Pick yourself up from off the bottom part. Pick yourself up from off the bottom part. I’m visiting and my departure is in the morning. Why make a big deal of it. Throwing. No leveling. The old way I say, in the house. Have you over. Say you are welcome. Pad on the rain you didn’t forget there was morning. Or stopped not dividing. Run on into. Braid. Porch. Baton. Three in the afternoon. Summer. Where are you this season.
Where will you be. To the end the walls are falling lengthwise. I could be lost outside of the way out. I shouldn’t fabricate before a letter appears. A word can change once the first letter is down. So dependable is where, now or before. The view has changed. Here the animals live in small cages for amusement. Poke your fingers in and be bitten. They can hardly take anything away from you. Here the walls are covered in images. The faces will be changed; what should qualify as a record. Your old haunt will begin as imperceptible. Now is harbor and dock rules. Now follow the rules of the dock! Time runs errands all over town. I want grain, or to see something but the repetition of absence.
Hazel...... Hazel......? Haze.....?
Francis.... Francie......! Francis?
Vivian......? Vivi......
Mabel......? Hey Mabel......!
Evelyn......? Evey...... Ev....... Ev........?
Gertrude..... Gert......?
Vera......? Vera...... Vera......! Vera.....! Veraaaaa...........................!
Hazel has gone away, we won’t see her for sometime.
I’m impassive to no sound on the visiting grounds. I’ll have to watch movies all day. Repeat lines. I’ll ask to lose the foot of here. I’ll unwrap the man. Your hands are work no matter. I’ll jam my hot fingers into the porcelain. All the symptoms are gone of how I wanted you here, don’t go. You are not here. You are not here. I am without the criminal. I had seen you off the porch when no one else was around to reprimand. I have never known you. Who will decide the dark. Manhood is an eraser; a scratchboard. You have walked across where you delineated the trough. Peeling our lanterns, the raw bulbs string us up. Barracks are hiding in us, and now it has been so long since the last letter. Your heart was in arrivals; vultured and preyed on. Tall hates are mounting. When did the head become so brazen, so immodest. The bathroom was another place to lose yourself. I would kiss your wrist. I would leave no one behind who was. Redoing the brakes, there was no reason to see yourself anywhere else. Whole you stand; cavelike. Your travels will break in you; your neighborhood, stone carved, granting, covered, facelike, revolving, vaulting it’s archways. Don’t put her away. All unsevered grapes will be halved and peeled. I saw a cherry tree for the first time. I ate one. I saw a pileated woodpecker for the first time. It was Chisel-billed. I have a feather; I don’t believe anything but that you gave it to me.
You won’t forget an annihilation. Repeal it. However far from your destination, any landing is a rest. I want to be in one free place for a time. Will we approach when we will need more rest than now. We will not look to a retirement will we. We see they are having one, do we believe in it. Our garden will be an indication. Down from breakneck we trained and breeched. The stand is another interpretation. The nod. Over the wall the reach is open. The face can turn around and be pale. Around ends at upright wall. Taller than we, the run. No riot entrellised. The cat’s interruption, a fast passing. Warping took us to put it out. A visitor let the water get by him. Just an expectation could bring what we saw in the end. The floating. No place remaining, not a soul in the place. Be hard by the stone. Ungive safest notice. Help! Kelp! How different. What you might have. Sand. You didn’t stop to lie under all the night. What you could have seen. What you remember to have seen. Could you have someone on you. I beside myself. Who reminded you you could go out; they are at the door, trammel, post-haste. Down to the night. I wish for a promise to drop from where I am in the lost time. Did you make measure. Touch the flower petal with your nose when you smell it. You wouldn’t see us all at once over here. That all spreads; the time was alone and here differenced. The color was dried blue, sun clay, woke before to watch. Press more than the one between the pages. You have to have touched how far you were gone; trenched, dyed by the laborers, the door also, matched to the far away job, seemed so much bigger than we. To place vines how far above, curling down around, who was the eraser. The bee falls drunk from the foxglove. Gloved over, I cease. How did the case wear. From above our faces, all the others see from that place we have been, made it to the soft road. Looked the tile all blue, the chair blue, the cool white of the crowding want. The hover. Drive past the chain link, greased, you couldn’t tell who was behind them or who was being kept alive, if there were dogs or bear. Who the relations were we saw not most of, until, and then we felt or were pushed. Oriole. Wash and prepare. The need will arrive, we will cater and pass. To see the broth we will not take the hurry.
When in the night do you say I come. When it has been a time since we have met. What do you say to us when we are returning like now, I am here. What says who you were to us but wanting a promise without what comes with one. Handled we weren’t hanging or mounted with bars on, you walled us like an idea you found. Out on the grass we came all around you, holding your smoke close by to you. I am here now, I am returned. You find me certain, you find me once. Beyond that, is what I have of you, now some part of a memory I keep of you from then, the first time I saw how you are in my mind. You are like I haven’t ever seen you, you are in my hands, I have them. This isn’t for saying how you would have said it. Before I was in bed and now I am awake and have a window. I am not wearing any bandages, I am meeting a freedom tonight. You had me on your damp porch and gave me an outdoor seat. I remember from a child where I was in a soft lift. I am sending from here what can be even. If you can’t have it, it is yours. Hammering is from the past and now all around is where you write from, I hope you feel welcome. Shipments. How long past radiates, you sit, I’m sure are you. Green lamps from then, bring them home, send off, kick your legs. Steer yourself from the behind, keep your eyes out, do
you have them.
Brisk and red. You are budding on your surfaces, managed when a high one canopies. Fall over us if you are, if we can breath with you. I want you on me, all of us do. Try to bring this from the ones left out, I want all of them in. I want this part so you have to ask for me. Who is missing, do you notice them and invite them back. I push for it or I’ll begin to. I begin to. They can take whole organs out and we forget they were there. Remember to draw a bullseye on your heart. I wanted that heart. Hover, draw lines all around where you are. I am not drawing lines where I am. Portion. Arrange where you pull up, I can float and you are under me still with air in you. Outside of here, where are they in the dark night. Red, from here I can see now the water by the bed in a bowl. When you close your eyes what do you see. There is nothing this time. What do you put behind your eyes.
Wake up tomorrow and look for us, We are everywhere, We are mentioned; Put your ear to it, We are success. You make. How having gilds. This was a night when we were regular like anything. What do you mean. I wanted not to say what I thought I would say: What should we have for dinner, I’m tired, Who’s turn is it, How many do you want, How much is it, I’m tired, It’s your turn, How much is it. I’m over then. Red person you sift out the I am starting over. Yes, You may come over tonight. These are circles? Strand went further to ribbons, Sails blow out over that sea you saw so many nights, I was only a visitor there, Where have all of you gone this one night when the late night is not out on the streets for me. This late. I come into where you might think is. There is no you here. You are too close to forget. Sit alone, You are not drifted. Handle behind on your back. Smooth like you remember that skin was. I am pushing tonight. Your first night back, My first night back, Do I speak too quickly, What is love like out there where you are in the dark with the bowl of water by your bed. Do you splash your face in the morning, What is the first morning thing you will hear in your far away place.
Rain on yourself. Why are you erasing. You can’t look back tonight, the ramparts are all around with their lights looking on. They’ve catalogued your disappearance, was it the more you spoke you switched them. Vaulting was a hot rope. If I say we frolicked can you see it. How the guidelines are bundled and torn off. Flick. Find granite in the landing, harness your visit. Come out of regarding. How we will lie. What is this way of talking, removing. This is going back to talking. The way where nothing is happening but the days with the mirror are passing and the hair is pulled at. Where the clothes must be replaced. Go hind part. Graft the time from then. When you were built of drips. This is a trash. Round your volume. Here is a fog. This feels dead to me. This is coming from off the front, just wiped. Make a sender, this is the dream mind you are finding. None edge. Bide, you lie.
Which harness do you choose. There can be so many to adhere to. Who lets you out; where is your will. I am a begging one. I haven’t seen the arranger. I am giving no torrential apology, you stream a voyage and run in place, stay gallant at the head of your hiding. The pace is interrupted, how will you line your walls to keep them out. Ungain your placement around the table, what is your way of entertaining. Did you call a place. Violets were brought back in the photographs, had you ever experienced one on the vine or stem. Some had negated the importance of your having seen them in person. How did this begin as thorough bondage, made sooner to forget than recount a commitment. You ran alongside of the coach and held the refreshment up to the bus window; will anyone return. I wish toward a demand. Don’t be gone.
On a rack for three sometimes hangs one. What ground will that penalize when I have forgotten to support four legs. Run to the distance, we are not reaching but chafing, clearing a place for you; trying again. The wing span of the bird you saw once, you were never there, when did you gather these namesakes. We will break over the top of you, do you want us. Links hover, have them and go portioned, how was running, it was so long before, gunned and hostaged. Can you stay just over the bed. Grasping, you left your hand resting on the sill. Who was watching as your face was under the fixture and living. Drink, sit back in your waiting. Run fast into the wind. Where did I begin this talk with you. What if he wants to be big like the rest of the outside. Who taught you. Fasten, guarantee. Off-drift.
Even if I told how closely I’d been looking, not finding some other pacifying. How wrong you have become in my unhappiness, I am not now but I can imagine. Hand me your desertion, there is an analyst; unfortunately she will be of little help to us. Hang with only a small difference, describing all the house plants and the legs over the edge. Constant a bright beginning, however the walk, you are back from it. Don’t wonder who has been calling for her, how gone is straight and how forward we were. These are of different lengths, some are longer and some are shorter— this is how you planned it. Had you planned it from beginning to end, are you figuring in what you hadn’t. Did you try on their pants when they were out, did you open any boxes, albums, freezer, almond scent, their fragrances, his shaving device, the papers or letters, your bag that you’d brought, the clock by the bed, did you scan the whole place, was it yours for a time, had the time been delayed, were the candles unlit, how would you manage to stay, what about the livestock. Going gray. Going incognito. Going willingly. Going without. Going wild. Going on. Going until. These aren’t trained; do I have to be established first. You’ll run. Can for a moment all these thoughts be gone.
I have forgotten you were here.
And handles are presented. They pull out into a drawer, it is filled with the garments you have rolled in. Despair of a railway; the wave, how many had you envisioned. I won’t say goodnight this day. What will it keep me from. I see you taking them into you, will you soon be gone with it. And of all the helmets available, the garage was bigger than you had remembered it to be; isn’t that the reverse of how we usually remember places, to have been bigger and more intimate. Ungrind these, helmet was on the you who never before would have considered that protection was of importance. Before you maybe would have said more about the rifle you had been carrying but somehow these kinds of details have diminished in rank, is it you don’t love me: fasten, tried, peptic. Broomed, you hard hatted registry. Calmer by the surrounding cities, from inside it had architectured permanence. Jagged and forerunned, un-sifted, you rafted off. I couldn’t see the figure; was it someone you knew, how far back was it, were you blinded by it. Hardened, fractured, unbalanced. Weighed, propped, moistened. Bowled, assuaged. Can it be believed. You were the coming of the way things could be switched, position-wise, was it practical, the untruths, did you bring them. How would you celebrate with all of this in mind. These were bicycles, do you remember them. Pedal them. Born into where training was underdone, are they unbanking us, you grant it. Your suspicions will all be relieved, unturned, reversed. You see me on the ground, what is it I am looking for. Have you lost something, we are a long way from you, do you remember leaving us behind. Unturned. The red was under you, I have taken the example. Unbrand it as a favor to them. Picket was what you dreamed of. I dreamed of taking many on. A grandmother was one of them, she fed the burdens, they were living. Gone past the order, while I was sleeping you were telling. Was it telling. I was keeping, you are wishing, they are doing.
Run off every place you’d forgotten. After passing, how many. Giving going is passing, a walking. How perched, you are in training. Giving raining. I’ve been changing, are you there. Over there I’m forgetting your stories, to hold me up in conversations. Bedside raging high end blending, did we make it, uninvited, what or who is left out. No side of this is veined tonight.
How do we disappear when nothing is right for wanting. The picture, is it folded over, I see it is. Folded over the outward streak. It’s there, it can be seen under all the plain faced nodding. Start nothing but yawning, staring, blocking. Which then closer than the outside. What is saving. Your years, you spend them and hope for them. Are you another like chafing, do I see you the way you see yourself in the felt puddle. I am making, is that triumphant. There are manufacturing stations for all our hidings and hoverings. Pull something large and flat over us, so we can be alike, so we can trade.
Take yourself from another, they are you in your sitting. Hand and fates when I waited to sling and bother. Unwind your time, you stay for more than you are awake mostly. Nobler than a highway ditch. I am not leaving but feel like ends are all around me. You are a beginner, no way to depend. Hang your fire, break long still. None but half will be under. Night runs down the overcast, hear heavy sheets hitting. Half asleep can record arrivals. When I see you I wish I was small again. Happening to you. Gravitate over a pole, bend yourself. To run from them into the other rooms, who said you were finding a priority concept. Across the green and the black sun split I saw you break open your mudded fields. A plane can take you over. Unsudden. Half-read. Part vandal, part wanderer, green, outstretched. Frayed balanced trellised. Found up-sent. Left there. Crest banded, off drift remains. We did give fracture a bend, all signed, wrangled and creaknecked, serpented radioed and disrendered, logged and sovereigned. Does this feel like sleeping, are any of the words still drowned, recoiled and felled, distance coming closer, redialed, found relayed, seen just lying, gem rocked, unwrite street sides, I saw that way had fallen asleep, we saw dreaming, no one is watching, no one is under there, I am flat like before, relive where is a start and feel jealous or mean, just like who you are.
Wind are you in to take me. Those who await in the afterlife are anxious to know. But there is no one waiting. Weight. I’m all up, so much later like the last time, what will be the measured time, being ranked in. Your brain is falling in the mix not flinching. I’ll put you down you flat old one. Was it she that ruled, this line is falling asleep, that one is awake and will be for some time coming. What are the qualifications, I remember you nicely when you are gone long enough, keep going, it is fine to have you as a memory, others will not leave us with memories, will they sit by to us as though they were just there, go, go, taloned feature— you are understated yourself, put on a line, range one.
Tonight this is literal. You are in wanting someone else. When will we leave. Some will stay in these places only to find themselves in place. Who is it he is not knowing. What end is this when the end is coming.
Why do you begin just as you see you must leave. Why begin when you are heavy in the eye. Hand over when. You see we are leaving now too. Bars granted or blowing off having. Taking no sifting and troughing, bowing and ribbing, making darts. You’re fading who is ranging, or grafting, signing what is the straight line up the front. Three of them were in bending, she was half timing it and under away with any of it through force. Preen off rattling.
I hate you when you desert me. I hate you when you leave.
Evering, signing what you marked. These are side bending tides where they’re high. Can’t say no to that usual, where you are in a tent, do we know here what night is. Cabled, grown stick-like. Which will make the form of what comes, how did you draw us; making what has no line. Is the back clear, jilted, unduplicated. You went away for it but we were tied in the rivets. At any point there is the fine of either side. Hinder the thoughts of then meaning after here. What you can do when no one is looking— do you bid, it is unclear. Tomorrow when they won’t be seeing then which is out. Do you vine and up or prostrate or stave or are you busy. Don’t let it only be you are sitting— being all the parts. Not there are— flick. Scrape. Tangent. Fall through. This won’t guess, it is here, who is being lost, stand for them and grant, jog. Unsophisticate, take a turn. Remount, undelve. None more than pasting, not washing— retracing. Who is swimming, do you see them all. Where is the water. Going back between directing and asking directions. Wind in, upright, seeing it back-lit, unrivaled. Graft me to it.
How can you be ended and finished. I am still here. I have been here and never have been gone. The hours have all been passing and friends have come forward and been left behind. Here we had been remembering before and now here we are again and comforted or threatened. We attempt to tune ourselves into a private room and without any news long enough to carry on and be able to answer. Can you be a part of what was before everything became more of what it was. Varied and unguarded we are no longer subject to revelation; there are no secrets if you want to see it that way. I am ten feet from this— who is sitting up closer, yell back, I’ll take it up. I’ve been gone and don’t want to give you up for fear that you will lose more than just yourself. Will your coming to a close. Close off any other space that may be able to open. I can barely remember now where it was you’d been all that time but still can remember your having been there which is hopeful. I’ve not unwrapped those days for a long time but not so long I can’t remember the feeling with which they passed. There were lists I was sitting in with you and they were long and warm. Hatless. If I agree to an end can I change my mind after. I would say to this even though many people say end and change this direction. Raven. Go slowly to an end, approach. Gilded and strident. You choose a position, not drowning. You are ordered only to be present, you don’t have to sit upright or wear your shoes. You may sit quiet and tight or speak out loud. Hammer. I’ve left from here.
Contributor
Elizabeth ReddinElizabeth Reddin is a writer who lives in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
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