The old raw is the worst. The new raw feels like heaven. Every raw in between leaves you wishing for the first and fearing the last.
Old raw is the kind of raw you think about, dream about, have nightmares about. It gets under your skin, your bone, your muscles – it digs into the marrow and the wire, grinding and slicing. It’s unforgettable, undesirable, and unavoidable. It catches you from the shadows, pounces, and when it gets you, it transports you.
You’re there. Held and dropped. Held and lied to. Held, but never listened to. And then you’re hardly ever held, then not at all. The raw is all that’s left, the kind of lingering numb that comes from hours of vibration. You’re shaken, but the buzz is gone. There’s just the raw, the open cut, and the exposed wires. Like a bare apartment wall, there’s an absence in the space. Your furniture is replaced by packed baggage.
The old raw’s never gone. You just pack as much as you can over the clean paint scars. New raws, new sounds and tastes. You dig them into the old spaces, cut away the rot, and jam in something vital, something burning, something fresh. Like an unfamiliar kiss, or a new color to the eyes. New raw wipes away the pain, but it can’t quite disinfect. New raw is temporary. It loses potency, can’t quite burn away the past.
The old raw remains…so we build, commit, and complicate. Lasting things are remembered, but how much joy do we remember over pain? How many of the good times feel like scar tissue, bittersweet for all the sweeter? New turns old, or turns into smoke, waved away with a stroke of the hand, a slash of the pen. Only the old raw’s left in the end.
In the end, we’re raw until we’re rotten.
In the end, we love to be rotten until it’s raw.
Friday, November 12, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Humble
“I understand why God created death. How else would he be God?”
The same thought always brought Allan Copeland out of his dreams. It was a soothing thought, as soothing as the comfortable weight of his wife’s chest against his back. She rose and fell with every tickling breath, and he felt himself alert enough to enjoy it. He always woke her when he slid free of the bed, no matter how slow or how careful. The way she’d moan and bury herself in the blankets brought a smile to his face. She was his morning coffee. The idea, however, was his hot shower.
Toast and eggs, and off he went, in his reasonably exotic, but not overstated car. He believed in humility – a certain amount of grace. He earned enough to splurge, but he kept the impulse to a minimum. His wife had sheets and books and furniture. She drove to her office in a Jaguar, bouncing to her iPod or clocking in early with her Bluetooth. He preferred a simple phone with a medical dictionary, an American sedan. He had a certain image to maintain.
The lab coat and the sharp dress shirt always felt dishonest to him, like he was trying to make a dirty job clean. He wasn’t paid or prayed to for the times when he applied tongue depressors and put knit caps on his patients’ heads. No, he was like God – he was remembered most in the red and black and brown of life, the green of illness and the sick pale white of flesh gone wrong. The palms were always pale. The palms touch God, he thought to himself, and found the idea pleasant enough.
That morning, he gave birth to three children, two boys and a girl. The mothers were so proud, but all they’d done was burst. He’d arranged the delicate chemistry, coaxed and called free a bounty from their wet, pink earth. He’d held those little lives before they even saw them. He was the receiver, the welcomer, the psychopomp.
He lost a child today. The hour was so quiet, defying the noise throughout the halls. Heads were low. Tears were shed. The other mothers and fathers looked at him with desperate eyes. They could smell the death in their hearts. They knew that he could keep the cold at bay, keep the chill from the little fingers and the little hearts. He proudly took their prayers – he shared them with God, those that didn’t reach him already.
Allan Copeland understood. He understood why God created death.
How else could he be God?
The same thought always brought Allan Copeland out of his dreams. It was a soothing thought, as soothing as the comfortable weight of his wife’s chest against his back. She rose and fell with every tickling breath, and he felt himself alert enough to enjoy it. He always woke her when he slid free of the bed, no matter how slow or how careful. The way she’d moan and bury herself in the blankets brought a smile to his face. She was his morning coffee. The idea, however, was his hot shower.
Toast and eggs, and off he went, in his reasonably exotic, but not overstated car. He believed in humility – a certain amount of grace. He earned enough to splurge, but he kept the impulse to a minimum. His wife had sheets and books and furniture. She drove to her office in a Jaguar, bouncing to her iPod or clocking in early with her Bluetooth. He preferred a simple phone with a medical dictionary, an American sedan. He had a certain image to maintain.
The lab coat and the sharp dress shirt always felt dishonest to him, like he was trying to make a dirty job clean. He wasn’t paid or prayed to for the times when he applied tongue depressors and put knit caps on his patients’ heads. No, he was like God – he was remembered most in the red and black and brown of life, the green of illness and the sick pale white of flesh gone wrong. The palms were always pale. The palms touch God, he thought to himself, and found the idea pleasant enough.
That morning, he gave birth to three children, two boys and a girl. The mothers were so proud, but all they’d done was burst. He’d arranged the delicate chemistry, coaxed and called free a bounty from their wet, pink earth. He’d held those little lives before they even saw them. He was the receiver, the welcomer, the psychopomp.
He lost a child today. The hour was so quiet, defying the noise throughout the halls. Heads were low. Tears were shed. The other mothers and fathers looked at him with desperate eyes. They could smell the death in their hearts. They knew that he could keep the cold at bay, keep the chill from the little fingers and the little hearts. He proudly took their prayers – he shared them with God, those that didn’t reach him already.
Allan Copeland understood. He understood why God created death.
How else could he be God?
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