It was only a matter of time before this project went meta. Seventeen days, to be exact. Jeffrey McDaniel's The Splinter Factory is one of my favorite collections to read and reread. This time, I read it front to back on a bus trip and then went back and siphoned out my favorite lines to structure a conversation around I hadn't intended said conversation to be about why I'd missed some deadlines in this project, but that's what ended up happening. As is the norm, any text in black was written by me, italicized blue text is from Jeffrey McDaniel's book. The title of this poem is also from a line by McDaniel, in which he describes how one goes crazy. One Marble At A Time
I promised myself I'd read a book of poetry a day the way I promised my mother I'd call once a week the way I promised I'd get my homework done the way I promised I'd tell whoever it was that year how I felt about them the way I promised I'd eat better I'd start running I'd drink less soda I'd forgive whoever it was that year the way a kitten promises frolic the way a bus schedule promises ibuprofen the way a road trip promises silence When I am confronted by the screeching car alarm of a deadline I get so lost in the hideous intoxication of the honk how you can tell in what year they bought that useless alarm based on how familiar the rhythm you and all your neighbors deliberately ignore I get so lost that I forget it's supposed to signal urgency I broke my word so many times, it became a handful of crumbs I sprinkled at my father's ankles whenever I needed money. It's so easy to dress my parents in all of my failures not because my father didn't remember my birthday enough or my mother never forgets to carry my most embarrassing childhood experiences in her purse but because they spent so much of my teenage years trying on my blame in the department store mirrors of my eyes that it's difficult to imagine them without it Every time I have dinner with a parent they drop a hundred on my plate until I sing the misery of their ex-spouse I'm the canary watching multiple coal mines via Skype Each of them twenty years removed from shared bank accounts Forty-five years removed from a ring and a question neither of them budgeted for I wonder how that question gets popped. Is it like a bottle of expensive champagne, or a big, ugly, zit that won't go away? My mother has never once not ever forgotten even a single time to ask who I am seeing I always say a therapist and thank her for asking But I can't see therapists the way dogs can't see color In that they can see color but differently than humans and have no way of expressing how they see My mother never laughs at this joke of my solitude but always offers to pay for my next meal She always predicts what her husband will order because he is not so much a creature of habit as a varmint of obsession When I eat with them I am expected to still be seventeen and growing in every way but diet Instead of salt and pepper, I'd like a think layer of antique store dust enthusiastically sprinkled on the lettuce, so halfway through the sandwich, a wave of nostalgia will wash over me If it isn't my parents' fault that I am less behind and more rolling beneath deadlines of my own design then can I blame desire How I could read a recipe book for inspiration and spend the rest of the night tasting a stranger determined to know the precise ratio of ingredients that led him to the awkward of us I mean, isn't it odd—how you can buy a lap dance, phone sex, or blow job in a snap, but can't pay a person a dollar just to sit next to you on a park bench and simply hold your hand? Oh, I've been down that road before. In fact, I still have property there So let's pretend my commitment issues and my love have never accidentally sat down across from each other on a train and spent the entire trip pretending they're strangers Let's say I miss deadlines like they are highway exits and I'm not driving but I am distracting the driver Let's say I miss deadlines like they stop calling me and I don't want them to think I need them any more than they need me so I don't call them either Let's say I miss deadlines like the only way I can communicate with my responsibilities is via Ouija board or speculative fiction Let's say I am so Over deadlines But that's not in the cards. Heck, it's not even in the casino. I often feel I'm not emotionally invested in anything to miss it Deadlines sure and sometimes people also but money when I'm broke love when I'm alone That nostalgia sprinkled on a sandwich is to impress you I can't even taste it
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