I didn’t finish my comic page today either! But I got some work done on it so I’m happy.
Here’s another old poem, recovered from the journals.
Is this what seduction is?
Lump lump bump bump
All I can do is stare
And wonder at the reaction
Of a Vulcan mind meld
With the office chair
Which sits blankly
Watching us
As its stuffing detaches
And dust gathers
In its joints
My neighbors
raise their voices to each other
at their front door
on a Saturday morning.
She shuts him out.
Let me in, he says.
Lana. Lana. Lana.
He calls her name
gently, patiently
with a trace of humor
and a deep seated
carefully masked
trace of Fear.
It isn’t long
before she opens the door.
He goes inside
acting
very
calm.
As if the most precious thing he had was
not
hinged upon his graciously handling
the delicate situation.
I didn’t do any inking or writing today! Instead I bought a lot of food and brought it to my sister for her birthday.
Here’s an old, old poem. Back when rhyming came more naturally to me.
You’re always so distant
You’ve left me behind
I perceive I’m still there
In the back of your mind
I’ll be patiently latently waiting for you
To see how you’ve gone down now — just one where were two.
When you start to look back
Will you start when you see
Right behind, looking back at you, silently — me?
I met a girl at a wedding
She had a fur stole.
Though I wasn’t bothered
She rushed to apologize
Explaining that it was her grandmother’s
And more a crime not to wear it.
Found out I was a girlfriend not a wife
And said bitterly, they’re in fashion now.
She explained that she, once a wife,
Had been relegated back to girlfriend status
Topping it off with the comprehensive phrase: it’s complicated.
Then she laughed, said she was fine
But it was clear she was not fine.
Declared us friends
And promised me more details after the ceremony.
I did not seek her out.
I had a sense that once she started talking
She would not be able to stop.
I danced one song with her.
She was manic
Dancing her fierce fake happiness
Bare to all.
Three times she told me
How she tore the edge of her dress
With her stiletto
Unaware of her own repetition
Unaware that she had actually injured my toe
In her clumsy drunken ambling.
In the process of self-destructing
Unable to take ownership of the better things
She threw her stole aside.
The things she still wore
Couldn’t withstand the strain
And shredded apart
Just from being near her.
Whose friend is that, people asked me judgmentally.
I defended her the best I could
But neither did I want to to get caught up
In the wake of her desperation.
I tried to draw for Inktober tonight but it was so abysmally bad, even I am giving myself a break. Mostly I’m just happy to still be able to talk, and breathe. It’s been an increasingly gross day. I’m watching this virus bloom in the warm culturing agent that is my body. My throat is closing up, a tiny series of trap doors, and with each one I lose another note to my voice. My coughs are coming more frequently now. Sometimes I have a sudden unpleasant awareness that I’m running out of air, drowning in my own fluids.
Why can’t colds leave as fast as they arrive?
Going for a walk with sick coworkers
K sounds like she has no nose
Uncharacteristically pepless.
H is physically weak
She nearly falls over trying to take a photo.
I cough and rasp my way through each sentence
But talk a lot more than usual.
Together we walk our fifteen minute break
Slowly
Cackling like old hags
Trying not to laugh too hard at ourselves
Lest we spur on another pulmonary problem.
“Flash forward thirty years,” I say,
“And this will be our constant reality.”
Let the healthy young men and women beware
The three plague sisters.
Flee from their slow, repulsive approach!
Sarah D. Silvey 