tourbillons + polaroids // e&c
Apr 17, 2024 23:46:51 GMT -5
Post by ᴥ on Apr 17, 2024 23:46:51 GMT -5
CEDRIC SPENCE
There's a leak in my room. I've colored in ruined drywall with acrylic paint, and taken down the photos with calcified stains. Corroded copper settles in the wall like veins around a bone, the kind of problem we can't afford to acknowledge. I can make up for lost memories and I've learned that feathered stains make for convincing clouds. There is good to be found here, so I take all my anger and put it away. It has no place in my father's home.
Laying - no sprawling - out across the same bed I've had since I was small. Knees bent and draped over one another 'cause they don't fit like they used to. The springs dig into my back, shifting under flesh and muscle until my body is all distant aching. I don't normally sit still for so long but I'm a bit distracted at the moment.
Captivated, maybe.
The cassette player lays on my chest, rising and falling in tandem with my breaths. The wire of the headset has gotten tangled around itself, laying in loops up the column of my throat. Music slips through my fingers like smoke, no matter how I try to capture the sound it's gone as soon as the tape turns over.
"-ric? Can I come in?"
"Dad?" I push up on my elbows, freeing one ear from the bright foam of my headphones, "Is something wrong?"
Something's always wrong. Disguised in whispered conversation around tight smiles. When the lights go out and we play hide and seek with the coins in couch cushions. Or else it's another hard conversation to be had, ("things are gonna be changing around here, Ced, but that doesn't mean we don't love you very much.")
but he says it's nothing and my shoulders relax. Not all the way. I'm watching, wary, as I sit up.
"What're you listening to?"
I shove the tape under my pillow, "My friend-"
"Wait, never mind."
"Oh, yeah ok."
He sits on the edge of my bed, I wonder if I'm imagining the distance between us. It wasn't long ago that I'd have been tucked into his side, listening to some old fairy tale in a tome he got from his grandparents.
That was, of course, back before either of us knew we were wrapped up in more than one fantasy. I'd apologized to him through tears, the day after Mom told me. Feeling more than just a liar, like they were carved into my core. I'm made of them.
He said he already knew. I was his son, blood or not, he told me.
There he sits on the edge of the bed "I, uh, didn't fill it in all the way."
Gee, I wonder when he stopped.
I force a smile where I thumb through the pages. Loved, like I am.
The more moments wear into memories, the harder it is to be sure. There's these big gaps between 'i love you's'.
I snap the journal shut when the pages run blank. "This is nice, I can't wait to read it." and I can't help but add, "No life changing revelations in here, right? I've had enough for a lifetime." Tacked on to the end of my name, even, Mom had heard me complaining about that and it ended up another fight.
Most of our conversations bleed into arguments anyway.
I rub at the leather, smoothing over the scars worn by age. Sixteen fucking years of old wounds. "Nah, Mom's a better liar than you. Guess that's her job."
Laying - no sprawling - out across the same bed I've had since I was small. Knees bent and draped over one another 'cause they don't fit like they used to. The springs dig into my back, shifting under flesh and muscle until my body is all distant aching. I don't normally sit still for so long but I'm a bit distracted at the moment.
Captivated, maybe.
The cassette player lays on my chest, rising and falling in tandem with my breaths. The wire of the headset has gotten tangled around itself, laying in loops up the column of my throat. Music slips through my fingers like smoke, no matter how I try to capture the sound it's gone as soon as the tape turns over.
"-ric? Can I come in?"
"Dad?" I push up on my elbows, freeing one ear from the bright foam of my headphones, "Is something wrong?"
Something's always wrong. Disguised in whispered conversation around tight smiles. When the lights go out and we play hide and seek with the coins in couch cushions. Or else it's another hard conversation to be had, ("things are gonna be changing around here, Ced, but that doesn't mean we don't love you very much.")
Dad's good at a lot of things, utmost, are excuses.
but he says it's nothing and my shoulders relax. Not all the way. I'm watching, wary, as I sit up.
"What're you listening to?"
I shove the tape under my pillow, "My friend-"
"Wait, never mind."
"Oh, yeah ok."
He sits on the edge of my bed, I wonder if I'm imagining the distance between us. It wasn't long ago that I'd have been tucked into his side, listening to some old fairy tale in a tome he got from his grandparents.
That was, of course, back before either of us knew we were wrapped up in more than one fantasy. I'd apologized to him through tears, the day after Mom told me. Feeling more than just a liar, like they were carved into my core. I'm made of them.
He said he already knew. I was his son, blood or not, he told me.
There he sits on the edge of the bed "I, uh, didn't fill it in all the way."
Gee, I wonder when he stopped.
I force a smile where I thumb through the pages. Loved, like I am.
Was?
The more moments wear into memories, the harder it is to be sure. There's these big gaps between 'i love you's'.
I snap the journal shut when the pages run blank. "This is nice, I can't wait to read it." and I can't help but add, "No life changing revelations in here, right? I've had enough for a lifetime." Tacked on to the end of my name, even, Mom had heard me complaining about that and it ended up another fight.
Most of our conversations bleed into arguments anyway.
I rub at the leather, smoothing over the scars worn by age. Sixteen fucking years of old wounds. "Nah, Mom's a better liar than you. Guess that's her job."