Words for Woeful Wednesday #2 — 11/23/16

There is something going on in my dreams

Last night I drifted on a sparkling green-glass sea: my sails unfurled, catching the wind — I grabbed a rope and maneuvered the boat into a bay clogged with sunbathers on inflatable rafts, belly up like frogs on lily pads pinned out for dissection. I sailed through, around some, over a few, until someone shouted, “You don’t know what you’re doing!” and I answered, “No, but I am doing it.”

The night before, I’d danced, silently and for myself, slowly turning round and round in a grey taffeta dress trimmed in rickrack — rows of red, orange and yellow — the sheen of the fabric, the bright lines of color coming out of the darkness and into view briefly before disappearing back into the shadows.

 

Words for Woeful Wednesday #1 — 11/16/16

Last night I broke my reading glasses

I heard them drop to the floor with a crack, but I hoped for the best. That’s what I do when things don’t go my way — which is to say, what I’ve been lately doing quite a bit. When I picked them up my finger went through the empty space where the left lens used to be and I was annoyed with myself for letting it happen. (They were peacock blue and recent favorites.) But as I slipped them into the waste bin my anger retreated, disappearing into the grey cloud cover of numbness that has been in my life for days, yet another broken thing that seems beyond my power to mend.