Mar. 7th, 2008

mercifulserpent: (Default)
Nicole Blackman – In The Movie Now

There is no glory in trying to make love to men who only know how to fuck. Man after man after man after man. Raised on porn. Out all day, while he's been watching two-dollar videos, now piles by the VCR. Out all day, at work, at class, at the gym, while he's been making plans.



There is no glory in trying to make love to men who only know how to fuck. Man after man after man after man. Raised on porn. Out all day, while he's been watching two-dollar videos, now piled by the VCR. Out all day, at work, at class, at the gym, while he's been making plans. Out all day, returning with bags of bread and tomatoes and bluefish, for what you think will be dinner. Dinner is you. And you are nothing like the dead-eyed blond women he's been watching. You're in the movie now. He is nothing like you remember. No time for a condom, take a pill, or put in a dire for him – those girls never get pregnant anyway. What are you trying to do? Clothes cannot come off fast enough, get them off, get them off. Shoes are always left on. You don't know why. You're in the movie now. You used to scrape your nails against the walls, leaving streaks like scars of where you wanted to stay and where he took you. Now you just go. It'll be over in ten minutes. It'll be over in ten minutes, twenty at most. A black envelope closes, with you inside. You're in the movie now. He winds your hair around his fist like a roll, and keeps it nailed to the bed. You swear you'll cut your hair tomorrow. You swear you'll cut your hair tomorrow. You still swim in memories sometimes. It wasn't always like this, was it. You are becoming stone, stone desires nothing, stone cannot be moved, stone can only be worn down little by little. Close your eyes, and think of England. You are tucked in for the fucking. You're in the movie now. There is no beauty in being held face down in a bed of sheets that tear beneath you, and you are wearing him like a country you haven't the strength to carry. You're in the movie now. You don't fight, he takes it from you, he takes it from you, he takes it from you now it isn't yours, how could it be, isn't yours anymore, never will be again. One eye open focusing on a window years of this and you don't even say anything anymore. This is how it is, how it will always be. You're in the movie now. It doesn't hurt anymore. You shut down, examining fibres in the pillowcase, counting them until he's finished. Seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine he says look at me, look at me it's no good unless you look at me you look right through him look at your bookshelf your grandmother's patio your list of things to do this weekend the basal leaves drying by the window. He says if you cry it makes him angry – I fuck better when I'm angry you know, you know, he says it every time. You learn not to cry. You are startled that he's doing this to you, you are startled that he knows how, you are startled that you stay, knowing that you'd tell a friend to kill him if he did this to her. Your mouth is on fire with possibilities. You say nothing. You shut down your body one limb at a time like you learned in drama class relaxation exercises absence of pain makes anything possible. Because you are pretty you are possessed, you too are alone, owner and owned. You used to confuse this with caring, you used to confuse these with caresses. Desire doesn't live here anymore. Desire doesn't live here anymore. You are turned over and over backstrokes in your own blood horses have been christened with less. There is no glory here. Only bloodstains, and apologies that come with the stroking. Only throwing up in a sink you'll have to scrub out later.
mercifulserpent: (Default)
 
 
Phantasia for Elvira Shatayev

(leader of a woman's climbing team, all of whom died in a storm on Lenin Peak, August 1974. Later, Shatayev's husband found and buried the bodies.)

The cold felt cold until our blood
grew colder      then the wind
died down and we slept

If in this sleep I speak
it's with a voice no longer personal
(I want to say      with voices)
When the wind tore      our breath from us at last
we had no need of words
For months      for years      each one of us
had felt her own yes      growing in her
slowly forming      as she stood at windows      waited
for trains      mended her rucksack      combed her hair
What we were to learn      was simply      what we had
up here      as out of all words      that yes      gathered
its forces      fused itself      and only just in time
to meet a No of no degrees
the black hole      sucking the world in

I feel you climbing toward me
your cleated bootsoles leaving      their geometric bite
colossally embossed      on microscopic crystals
as when I trailed you in the Caucasus
Now I am further
ahead      than either of us dreamed      anyone would be
I have become
the white snow packed like asphalt by the wind
the women I love      lightly flung      against the mountain
that blue sky
our frozen eyes unribboned      through the storm
we could have stitched that blueness      together      like a quilt

You come (I know this)      with your love      your loss
strapped to your body      with your tape-recorder      camera
ice-pick      against advisement
to give us burial in the snow      and in your mind
While my body lies out here
flashing like a prism      into your eyes
how could you sleep      You climbed here for yourself
we climbed for ourselves

When you have buried us      told your story
Ours does not end      we stream
into the unfinished      the unbegun
the possible
Every cell's core of heat      pulsed out of us
into the thin air      of the universe
the armature of rock beneath these snows
this mountain      which has taken      the imprint of our minds
through changes elemental and minute
as those we underwent
to bring each other here
choosing ourselves      each other      and this life
whose every breath      and grasp      and further foothold
is somewhere      still enacted      and continuing

In the diary I wrote: Now we are ready
and each of us knows it      I have never loved
like this      I have never seen
my own forces so taken up and shared
and given back
After the long training      the early sieges
we are moving almost effortlessly in our love


In the diary as the wind      began to tear
at the tents over us      I wrote:
We know now we have always been in danger
down in our separateness
and now up here together      but till now
we had not touched our strength


In the diary torn from my fingers I had written:
What does love mean
what does it mean      "to survive"
A cable of blue fire ropes our bodies
burning together in the snow      We will not live
to settle for less      We have dreamed of this
all of our lives


-Adrienne Rich

Profile

mercifulserpent: (Default)
mercifulserpent

November 2014

S M T W T F S
      1
2345 678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30      

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Sep. 3rd, 2025 12:58 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios