jonathan and aaron are also in this picture, but they are elusive, only seen at night. with binoculars.
my parents' patterns are pulsing and puttering inside, green-genes that have decided my destiny, deserted my destiny. my parents, on their wedding day:
their faces are blank. I am also in that picture, inside of my mom, splashing & spelunking in my mother's mossy womb. they met at a christmas party, my dad with a date and my mom with a drink. a party with crumpled napkins crinkled clothes empty words. my mom was an art-school dropout, a sexy hippie that played the guitar and roller-skated to work. my father was rich, constructing companies and selling them for profit, interviewing russians in russian, working with lyndon johnson and bobby kennedy. through him I met three presidents, including the present one and his dim daughters. 'christine!' w. bush exclaimed the second time I saw him. how I loathe him. blah blah. whirlwind dating for three months, I'm sure that for my father it was just another fling, but my mom was in love. when she told me about it she said 'I didn't remember who he was when he called me up for a date, but I was broke and starving and so I said yes, and then he showed up in his mercedes, and he looked so handsome, and then he took me to an expensive restaurant.'
'uh, and?' I asked. 'and what?' she said, puzzled. he took her on trips around the world. bought her a pink jeep. this is my parents' story. I feel sad repeating it.
my father was married once before, to one of the wealthiest heiresses in the americas. their wedding celibration lasted a week in the caribbean, yet he was childless because of an atrocious accident in his early years, leaving him barren. one day my mom showed up at my dad's office. 'I'm pregnant,' my mom said. 'whose is it?' my father asked. he married her anyway, for her honor I am guessing 'but,' my mom said, repeating it later, 'when he saw you it was out of the question that you could belong to anyone else.' thanks mom.
my dad took me everywhere, he bought a ski resort in colorado and I learned to ski when I was three. my parents had six children after me.
'I remember being in highschool and going to the beach, where all of my friends and girlfriends were swimming, splashing, but I turned away in sadness,' my dad told me once, trying to explain depression. 'do you ever cry for absolutely no reason?' he asked me. I was only eleven, and I didn't understand. I ran away from home when I was 18, and my family was touring the states. my mother always called and said things like 'we just rode horses on the beach. please come and join us. we just saw the grand canyon. please come back.' but my dad refused to speak to me. many months later, when they were in texas and I was getting ready for work very early in the morning, the phone rang. it was my sister, sam. 'christian, I'm scared,' she said. 'dad's been missing all night. here, talk to mom. please.'
'christian, his ID is here and he's not,' she said, crying frantically. 'maybe he went somewhere..' I said trying to placate her. 'no,' she said. 'he killed himself. I just know it.'
she was right. the detective who found him called me on the phone but I hung up on him and went to work. I didn't believe it. I thought that if I travelled on all the roads, I would find him.
the last few years of my life I didn't get along with my father. he was always out of town, he hardly spoke to me. and I think we would get along less now, because he wanted a cheerful opera singer, or some political science ponytailed patriot, yale graduate. this isn't a sob story. it really happened. I still think I see him sometimes, in a crowd, a blurred image from a car-window. capricious cotten people.
I also see someone named org and someone named amanda sometimes, but I'm doing so much better than I was a year ago. earlier today I saw a face on the shiny surface of a car, and it was anthony. I'm about to get henna on my arms. let's kill everone in the whole world.
with seagulls:
me and scottie at a party:
yes anthony is wearing makeup. I put it on him.
my family:
close up to me...
close up to my anatomy.
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