Blood Tangent | Column

5 years ago Sarai Nissan

Photo Credit: Bobby Jones

The only thing I have written down since I put off writing this column (even though I have been awake from the hours of 1 to 4 a.m. and have nothing else to do) is a quote from a Frederick Seidel poem and some ramblings about how Britney Spears shaving her head was actually punk rock. “You keep on writing to write yourself away.” This is my literary X-ray. Who knew an 81-year-old poet I’ve never met could know me so well. I keep writing this for some feigned composure. I keep writing this to write myself away but I’ll keep writing anyway.

I suppose this isn’t exactly the place for prose or poetry, but maybe that’s the point of psychiatry. I write myself into oblivion, maybe that’s the reason for all of my anxiety. And I am so tired of writing, it’s becoming mindless. The music keeps playing and the idea of silence is timeless, but lately all I hear are sirens.

I cover every window in my coffin of an apartment with any black garment I can find, documenting the decline, no one seems to mind. Do you think I’ll get my deposit back? No, I do not take Prozac. I always need to charge my iPhone, maybe you should write that on my headstone. An overgrown houseplant covers the kitchen window like a black widow. And I am too terrified to touch it; a greenhouse misfit, I know I will kill it.

I woke up sleep deprived so I took a nap hoping that maybe that would bridge the gap. Of course, I overslept, blindsided, finding ultra-violent sunlight through curtain folds, thresholds and marigolds. On my way home I thought about all of the things I do instead of write.

Our house is filled with old things, things with wings, strings, rings or maybe things that belonged to kings. It always smells like cigarettes and incense, we have no white picket fence. I keep writing to write myself away, what was I going to say?

Destitute ghosts linger in these dark valleys and the dirty alleys are always the same, some things never change.