Dream Rooms by River Halen

Author:River Halen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book*hug Press
Published: 2022-08-17T15:47:37+00:00

When you hurt one of us you hurt us all

I wrote in my notebook from my bed

in a depressed but clairvoyant mood

thinking of the moment my grandmother hit

the kitchen floor and some bacteria got past

my fear of intimacy because

I don’t have enough.

If she really is a dyke or possibly

a faggy or even quite a butch, low-voiced man.

If all her life as it appears from the outside

she has never realized or acted on it.

One time my grandmother, my mom, my sister, and I

were watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

My grandmother stood up and left.

My mom followed.

Later she reported

my grandmother had said

it was because of the gay people.

In that movie there are no gay people

so my mom asked what the gays were doing

that bothered her.

My grandmother’s response was bitter

and turned quickly to politicians

with male pattern baldness

who make false promises

(also not depicted in the movie)

leading my mom to believe

she had no idea what gay meant.

I think she knew the word to mean

dishonest and physically

unappealing. And politics

to be everywhere and baldness

as a form of open

secret. The moths especially

like to eat hair.

If she really is about to turn ninety.

If you are not the only

or even the main one hurt

but you are hurt.

A thing about me

is I am terrible with a camera

never think to click it

I have hardly any of you

that aren’t at least partial nudes

I have one of a night an insect

flew into your eye and bit it

and half your face swelled up

and mostly it’s the only one

I could ever share with people

because we live in a culture

that polices tenderness not

violence, nobody wants to see evidence

I admired your gorgeous bits

everyone is fine to see evidence

your eye was swollen shut

you’d probably rather no one see either

which in the context of my photographic oeuvre

renders you invisible

making me realize the urgency of good art

that makes its own context

I have to get better

at leaving some.

And you—

well, you left.

You had to, I guess.

You just did.

It’s possible.

I have learned about leaving

in being left by you

in leaving you

the hole after

is a skill to develop for many purposes on earth

and the healing of the ocean.

You can do it on the phone

I can do it in my

imagination

we can do it together

every day a ceremony

in the parking lot

idling.

When you punched the wall

in the story as I pictured it, you were everyone

who’s ever frightened me, which is a lot of people

maybe, fairly or unfairly, everyone I’ve ever known

but originally my dad, who I feel the need to clarify

was not a puncher to me but used words.

He would get angry about the cat

the position of the salt shaker

in my hands, a few times

he told me to get out of his life

like I was a pestilence and he was God

but it wasn’t working.

Also me—

this one time in an argument with my ex

I excused myself to the bathroom

to hit my forehead against the door frame

repeatedly, I do not think I hurt the door frame

I hurt the concept of myself

as an animal in an enclosure

I had entered voluntarily.

When you are everyone and you

leave a place

everyone leaves the place too

because you are everyone—

it’s automatically a powerful gesture.

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