someday

sometimes my heart aches for all the lives i am not living.

[12grimmauld-blog]

I sometimes feel I am draining the earth  dry, turning a fen into a cracked scorched plate. To fall and blister, Shakespeare wrote as if for me. Throw me against the wall like porcelain before I throw you. I know I obscure the truth but it’s always there, a cave painting on the whites of my eyes — I ask so little but I take so much, and my 2am messages prove it, or perhaps the other way round. The sun wakes me before the gulls and my first thought is that I want to be worshipped.

Chiaroscuro, by Madeleine B.

[12grimmauld-blog]

In the White City bougainvillea hangs like Babylon, creeping down Mandate walls as if made expressly for these Rothschild sunrises. It’s always a dream here, still. Some things haven’t changed. The air in Yodfat brings the familiar lucidity. From the top of the Tel, the basin and the Mushroom Valley await — on a clear day, the fields stretch to Nazareth — and the wildflowers shoot up along the slope in a Via Dolorosa of lavender, mint, and yellow dots of wild mustard. On Yefe Nof street the harbour glimmers gold, emerging out of smoky darkness. Everything is different, of course, spines are stiffened. New sandstorms are rolling in. This never feels like home and sometimes I feel guilty for it. But the gong still rings out at 2 for tea and cigarettes every day, without fail. That’s as much as I can ask for in this place. The wildflowers keep growing. We’ve all grown.

Untitled (Sheni) by Madeleine B. 

[12grimmauld-blog]

A girl is feeding Tesco Everyday Value grapes into the expectant mouth of a toga-clad boy in the living room of this party. I pour myself a Cuba Libre with off-brand cola and slur my small talk with people about how lovely is the gilded moulding and they don’t even pay through the nose on rent so lucky aren’t they. Earlier over a cup of afternoon tea my friend asks me is it awkward now when you see him? And I shrug studiously and lie through my teeth no it’s fine we’re fine it’s all normal now yeah. I watch the milk swirl into my cup. You know, he’s actually a really good guy, she says and searches me for a reaction. I know that now, I say, but it’s far too late anyway it’s been months. I sense the reproach but I just can’t help but ignore it. On good mornings, I notice that my hair is getting longer. I go running along the coast and smile at the golfers as they pass. Others, I wake up in a cold sweat and then wander around town in the rain avoiding the places I ought to be. I put my rum and coke down on the mantel and turn to be engaging and charming to the rugby player next to me. The thing is, it feels as if on some days, I am Theseus. Some days, I am the Minotaur. More often than not, lately what I am is the string.

Study of a Tuesday in March (Hepburn Gardens), by Madeleine B. 

[12grimmauld-blog]

The sun is setting later these days. I walk out to the  Quad at 5 o’clock and the sky glows kaleidoscopic blue; it’s milky, dusty, as if through a lens, but the bells at the chapel ring clear and true. Finally, I have room in this landscape to be able to stretch my legs. In the K--------- Library, I sit next to manuscripts older than my native country. The silence shakes me by the shoulders. Do you ever wonder why the hell you deserve to be here walking on these ruins? Every cobblestone on S---- Street is a gentle snowflake on my tongue; there is a certain sort of magic swirling in the sediment at the bottom of the wine I’m nursing at this dinner party. I grasp the glass by the stem because I have learnt some things. Chief amongst them: that I am bad at saying no to things I want, but ought not to have. I graciously accept a Dunhill and a light on the smoking terrace, but I refuse to borrow a jacket. I roll my eyes mercilessly at bad conversation but I fuck the guy anyway. I say ‘I’ too much and I reflect too little. Perhaps at springtime, in the long evenings of Celtic daylight, I will learn to take care of myself. Maybe sooner.

Untitled (Salvator), by Madeleine B. 

[12grimmauld-blog]

Alone in the heart of the medina I feel intoxicated in this dry land from the pungent stench of tanneries and sewage, and I haven’t felt so lightheaded since the glorious afternoons when I used to walk home in the fog down Boulevard Béranger, smiling at the ant colonies of parked Citroëns. I have since lost the muscle memory of how to lose myself, and I am only just regaining it. Thinking too much is as blinding as acid. I know this now. Add it to my tab. From time to time I wish I had a receipt of everywhere my breath has travelled, everywhere my feet have blistered. Everywhere your lips have been— in which way I will force myself to care, the way someone my age ought to. It seems an interminable job, and I have never been able to simply go through the motions without feeling the pervasive wretched emptiness of Brideshead: ‘It’s where my family live’. In December I sat on a bench at W--------- and waited, silent and motionless amidst the tangles of heather, for the sun to set, but instead the sky turned from ash to charcoal without a passing glimpse of colour. Then indigo, et nox. And so went the end of the year. Now, in January, in the shade of a palm in the courtyard of the Musée du Batha, I am myself again. Terms and conditions still apply: my coat is in my suitcase, my mobile will need to be switched back on. Yet this prospect no longer daunts me. Later, in Taghazout, I let my jumper fall from my shoulder and I exhale silver like a tree in photosynthesis. Lightheaded, once again. I have felt so old for so long: since the arrivals gate at EDI two autumns ago — no — truly since the sleepy 7am taxi ride to Charles de Gaulle, still dressed for warmer climes and yawning as I swung my backpack into the car with controlled abandon. I wanted to be older, always. And now? Now: the gloves are off. No younger, but immeasurably freer. I arrive home at 4pm, to H--- Street.

Arcadia, etc. by Madeleine B.

[12grimmauld-blog]

A hagiography, herein, lies: a tale of lives neither saintly nor martyred. Seagulls are wailing discordantly, Chekhovian— a final death knell. Freedom, or something like it. Somewhere, the tide is rising. We must think of Simeon the Stylite, living atop a pillar— a true ascetic— for thirty-seven years because the only way he could escape the masses was to make a vertical exit. Self-imposed isolation or self-immolation? The earth will keep spinning regardless. Somewhere, a baby cries out. The goats find their way back down from the mountain at dinnertime, light-footed on the rocky hillside. Tonight, we turn back the clocks solely to remind ourselves that the seasons are changing. Nature needs no such guidance. Somewhere, two lovers have just locked eyes for the first time. We leave, and now we know how to come back. The theology of oneself; the narrative of finding a place. Yet it is not enough to think that what we lose will be returned to us. Instead, the biggest miracle of all is the persistent expectation of something better up ahead. Somewhere, an airplane is landing. Somewhere, a congregation is saying Amen.

Requiescat in Pace, by Madeleine B. 

[12grimmauld-blog]

This is the grand scheme of things; this is what I have awaited all year. All 20 years. We run into the North Sea as dawn breaks; almost redemption. Bone chilled, but invigorated. Lately the night rarely bothers to fall and I struggle to imagine the short days, though I know many lie ahead. Right now the sunlight is endless and transformative. Impending changes kick from within me like restless reminders from an unborn child— I exist, I exist, that persistent tattoo— but I am not scared yet. My life is hungry, and I will gladly feed it.

In May, by Madeleine B. 

[12grimmauld-blog]

My lips catch on the glass mouth of a Coca Coca bottle, sweet carbonated North Carolina deliverance in a game of rustic transubstantiation. Seeing what is not there: an art. A virtue, perhaps, and one which I only practice on the innocuous, for good reason, I think— if one attaches such biblical import to anything that actually matters, one plays a dangerous hand, tantamount to self-destruction. But for these wholly secular phenomena: I relish the mistaken moments of mine, the false positives and spiderwebs. A universe, united. I hear cowbells on the hillside past La Cure and my first thought is that they must be church bells.

From a Nonbeliever, by Madeleine B.

[12grimmauld-blog]

I. For what it’s worth, I never intend to be as venomous as I am. But intent is a sinewy beast, and hard to keep ahold of. This venom just slips out of me. Excuses, I know. II. The thought of West Sands at half eight on those spring evenings haunts me. I count down the days until I am home amidst that holy tableau of soft light upon water, cradled by sand. III. I gulp down water as if each glass is the last I will ever drink. A cure for the poison I bathe in. IV. Please, let good things come. I am doing all I can, and I can never tell if that is enough.

Unsaid, by Madeleine B.

[12grimmauld-blog]

Am I wiser for the markets I have navigated, for the time spent alone, for the long lonely flights over a navy sea— or am I merely crueler, somehow more terrible than before? Instead of softening out my edges, the sandpaper of time seems only to have whittled them into sharper corners. Sometimes I speak and then wonder how I could let such acrimony slip out of me. In Paris at 17 I said, ‘This is the first day of my interesting life’. How ruthless, looking back, that was of me to say. To discard all that came prior. But then, do I not still operate in the same vicious vein? Opening my eyes each morning and thinking, now— now is when it all begins. As Hadrian’s Wall divides my beloved adopted home, so I segregate my yesterdays from my todays. People ask me how I do what I do, as if there’s guts involved in leaving and starting anew. There isn’t. Only I know that I can be merciless, to myself most of all. I toss my old skin out the passenger window, snakelike. Really I ought to keep it.

Ecdysis, by Madeleine B.

[12grimmauld-blog]

When the Furies go after Orestes, they do so with force. Fire. But he is merely following directions, justified vengeance, blood paying for blood. A leaky faucet, a persistent drip of water to the next generation. Someone, please, turn off the tap. The problem with loving fiercely is the backlash, and at what point does the reciprocal blood thirst end? I am a Fibonacci sequence in my inability to disentangle the disparate fibers of my pneumatic self; open me up and you’ll see I am the sum of that which came before me. But try to deconstruct me and fail because I will, without a doubt, be holding on for dear life to the ropes that I’ve climbed to create myself. In panicked nautical knots lie an attempt to plait my soul into something cohesive, something knowable, worth understanding. Yet which aspects are inextricable to me, and which ones are laid upon me? Aeschylus’ Furies are villainesses, but perhaps instead we ought to pity them: a miserable existence, to maintain objectivity, to punish equally. A job for which I am not cut out for. Blood pays for blood, but it’s all blood just the same. A to-do list: learn to ignore the dripping of the tap. Learn to forgive. Learn that it’s alright to be subjective, to play favourites, in my life which belongs to me. Stop studying how to toughen up. Rather, learn to loosen my grip.

The Oresteia, Reconfigured, by Madeleine B. 

[12grimmauld-blog]

This is not about ephemera. I want an everlasting stick-and-poke in the depths of my heart of hearts. I want everything, and I want it badly. Too long I’ve relished in the game of who can care less. Who can skip town quickest. Who can sober up and grab a shirt off the floor in the morning with more studied casualness. See you around maybe, yeah? I’ve worn these accomplishments as my coat of arms and now my body aches from that weight I’ve been carrying. I’ve always figured that if I couldn’t be the girl who people wanted to keep for good, I’d  just make myself into a girl that would slip through their fingers and leave them wanting more— a forced magnetism  which was exhilarating but now makes me tired. I want more than what I’ve allotted myself.  I want to feel something, so hurt me. Hurt me, goddamnit, love me.

This Is Not About Ephemera, by Madeleine B.

[12grimmauld-blog]

I. I weeded the vineyards at Halav im HaRuach until the greenery and I switched places: the vines pristine, proud. Myself, thorn-ridden and newly humble. I built fences which I’m sure have since eroded and been rebuilt. Everything, at some point, erodes and is rebuilt. II. It was nice to imagine that the heat was my redemption in that final week; was the benevolent touch of a god who wanted me to know that I was free, that I had spiraled my way around this sacred land for long enough on Egged buses. That finally, I had earned my day of rest.   III. And perhaps that is the narrative for some other girl, a girl who senses divine goodness where I glimpse a rocky dirt trail of personal growth. I saw holes in myself where there had been none, yet I ignored the holes in my work gloves, donning them regardless. Nothing in life is given. Everything is earned. IV. I did learn eternity here, in this Holy Land, this hallowed ground. But not in the way that I was meant to. I learnt impermanence, and my marginal role. I realise now that those fences, those long-haul bus rides, were not a self-imposed penance, nor a celestial license. It’s all cyclical. It’s all nature. V. Again, again, again. The world goes on. The vines grow.

HaOlam, by Madeleine B. 

[12grimmauld-blog]

I am not selfless like Prometheus; I would keep the fire for my own. Striving to be unblemished ought not to take a toll. But it always will. I’ll pick up the tab, but I’ll regret it tomorrow. And herein lies what I’m getting at. This is what it is to be young— to feel the acute shifting of scales, the give and take, the debt of being. The transactional nature of existence. There are things I tell to you because I don’t want to hold them within myself. Every day, I wake up and say ‘I want to be clean,’ and every night I willingly prostrate myself at the ugly altar of messy limbs and sloppy touches. I come away with no more than what I started with. Perhaps this is what it is to have a peripheral eye in two worlds. The language of tolerance, and the language of adaptation— the script of ‘I wish I could kiss you,’ and the subsequent script of ‘Oh god, now I have, and I can’t figure out how to extricate myself from you.’

Payment, by Madeleine B. 

[12grimmauld-blog]

Release me, gods, that I am no longer bound to wait within the confines of this burnt city, this painful sunlight, this ageless body. Let me transcend my skin, for it suffocates. I crave wrinkles extending from the fold of my eyelid; I crave a sag in my breasts. The towers of Ilium were never meant to be scorched by the hollow heat of my sultry façade. This is not what I wanted. Please, gods, allow me to grow old before I unwittingly burn the world down. I am merely a woman who sought that which all women seek, that from which I alone have been cruelly forbidden— love, that elusive elysium. What empyrean joy it must be, to be loved fully for one’s inner self, as I was for those brief days and weeks with Paris. My fingertips burn that which I touch, and the flames attract the lust of greedy men. Zeus, my father, I beg that you unchain me from the shackles of my beauty. Ships in harbour belong there. I did not ask to start a war.

Helen’s Invocation, by Madeleine B.

[12grimmauld-blog]

February 2014; I see a man have a heart attack, his limbs splayed out on the dirt path of the Street of the Façades as the ancient Nabateans watch knowingly from their rose-hued tombs. Unresponsive. Medics gather. A crowd of tourists swarms.      December 2007;      My aunt is driving to work when she feels      wrong. Something is off. She knows not what,      but she knows it is something. The road to work      swiftly becomes the road to the doctor’s      office. In the reception area, a faintness. Suddenly,      on the ground. Panic ensues. It’s over      then, midmorning— and retrospectively I try      to backtrack. What was I doing then? I felt no      cosmic jolt. I didn’t know. An interloper in this windswept tragedy, I feel guilty, shameful, observing and so I leave, walk back through the valley and retreat to the comforting shadow of the Treasury. In alternating increments, I breathe heavily and then don’t breathe at all. I even consider paying 5 dinar for a tourist-trap camel ride back through the claustrophobic alleyway of the Siq. I am alone in this entire country. Alone in a lot of ways.      When I get home from school,      my parents sit me down and tell me      and I cannot believe them. I will not believe      them. I run, I scramble around the house and I scream, I shriek, I      wail. The same words every time I open      my mouth: No. No. No. No. No.      It is inconceivable that the earth will keep on      turning its slow turn, that there will be      a day to follow this one, and another day      following that. To this day, I still      have no recollection of the funeral. On the long bumpy bus ride out of Wadi Musa, I don’t think that I will ever shake the image of this unknown dying man nor of his final moments, subsumed ungracefully by the desert dust and curious tour groups. May 2015; I still think about both of you often, and when I do, I get a solar eclipse behind my eyelids. Blinding white pain. But on the odd-numbered days: life, it keeps going, albeit never in the same way as before. Is it wrong that I am okay with that?

One Tragedy Which is Mine and One Tragedy Which is Not Mine, by Madeleine B.

[12grimmauld-blog]

Lately I think a lot about how we construct the narratives of our lives for consumption by others. We do the things we do and we don’t always share our reasons. The fraying wires, the bruised fruit, the times I’ve put myself in a taxi alone to go home, the fingernail clippings shorn off in a bout of anxiety. Here’s a vignette: It is nighttime, with friends, at a party. I accept a cigarette, light it, hold it elegantly the way I’ve seen Grace Kelly do in photos, and then flick it over my shoulder when no one is looking. And these moments, I now realise, are the crux of it all. The gulf between the words I whisper in your ear in bed and the unspoken subtext of when I don’t text you back the following morning. The lies we tell ourselves versus the lies we tell others. The implications of my grey stone house— its street, its neighbours, the clout it unwittingly carries— is like a fur-trimmed mantle that is beautiful but far, far too heavy. I am a different variation of myself at each galvanising place in which I find myself, and how exciting it is to have unlimited chances to try out all of these iterations of my being. This much is true. Yet also true, but less easily admitted: even after all this time— especially after all this time— I ache each springtime, pining for my beloved cherry blossom trees. At 20, I recognise that I am always well-intentioned but I am rarely honest.

Prometheus Didn’t Intend to be a Martyr, by Madeleine B.