but what i really want to say is - mark cayanan
I am showing you my life. It is afternoon as I write: The summer has given up its sticky heat in place of rain, premature but as gray as ever. I cannot see far or as deeply as where you are, but when I tell you what I tell you, you must believe me. I am showing you my mother, the way she rearranges furniture you wouldn’t even think the wood’s been eaten into. When I tell you forgive her skittishness, I rely on what you know of the term. Similarly, you must understand that I choose not to speak of my father. Similarly, you must understand when I tell you several stories about my father, each annulling each. I do not intend to be true, only truthful. I am showing you how I have loved: not enough, or too much, the result of both being termination. But when I say there were days when my cheek pressed against someone’s sweaty back signified forever, I mean for the moment to be acknowledged, I mean there have been a few, and they have all felt the same. I am being sentimental: I know no way to speak of the self without amplification. I am showing you what the bruise on my thigh means. I am showing you the implication of a sigh, behind a sneer, and what the proper response should have been. I am showing you shame, string it up and place it around your neck. Most of all, I am telling you what I want is for you to tell me It is mine, too. Not an epiphany, not a punch line, but a mirror, but a kiss, but in the air, perfume, effluvium.
