Demon and The Dove by Miguel Murphy

The psychotherapist has a sad dove
dying in his eye. He looks at the light
like wood holding fire in it
reflected in small caves
and tells me there is a window where love weeps
over what it cannot know. The dove's

trembling, flickering like a sun alone
in the dark nest of his face, and the psychotherapist
is saying, there is nothing like losing your Self
for a Demon. We walk in to each other
as into a museum, and our portraits gleam. This sounds
like he's saying our deaths are old, they
may not even belong to us. In the end, our meeting
is just the fantasy

we've been looking for all along. Yes,
Yes, I say, I've come here to burn for you
all my illusions. Yes, I say, I can see
you for who you are like I can see
the mother huddling her chicks in the sea cliff
in your inkblot, before she pecks their eyes large
as blood grapes and eats them
alive, the storm

clouds rupturing that purple
slag of lightning. What I want is to hold you
like a bell holds space
between the hours. What I want is to get back
one with the other, self
with dove, desire with the storm

inside that destroys
absence like a murderous blood. What I want
is a therapy like a first love—merciless
fascination—my eyes looking in
like the crazed bells of silence
to startle the mortal
coil. This
romance of self

you can't escape, and you don't want to

OVER WINE by Wisława Szymborska

He glanced, gave me extra charm

and I took it as my own.

Happily I gulped a star.

I let myself be invented,

modeled on my own reflection

in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance

in the stir of sudden wings.

The chair's a chair, the wine is wine,

in a wineglass that's the wineglass

standing there by standing there.

Only I'm imaginary,

make-believe beyond belief;

so fictitious that it hurts.

And I tell him tales about

ants that die of love beneath

a dandelion's constellation.

I swear a white rose will sing

if you sprinkle it with wine.

I laugh and I tilt my head

cautiously, as if to check

whether the invention works.

I dance, dance inside my stunned

skin, in his arms that create me.

Eve from the rib, Venus from foam,

Minerva from Jupiter's head-

all three were more real than me.

When he isn't looking at me,

I try to catch my reflection

on the wall. And see the nail

where a picture used to be.

Designer Orgasms

If I could put this on a plack I would:

"Make me cum. Again: you’ll know. Orgasms are like the price of heels at Balenciaga. If you have to ask, get the fuck out." -Sarah Nicole Prickett, How To Have Sex With Me One Time

(via Thought Catalog)

A Moment of Dreaming

What does it all mean, she wondered, rolling over in her bed.  She had just awoken with a start: in her dream they had been standing there holding hands.  She knew she was smiling, and although she couldn't see his face, she knew that he was very unhappy.  As the perspective of her dream went from wormhole to landscape, she saw why he was frowning.  His mother was there in the corner, dead.

She touched him in her bed, fully awake now, and brushed away his hair.  He didn't know about her dream but she felt suddenly closer to him, as if she knew every dream he had ever had. 

The Perfect Club

Sitting across from him, two large glasses of prosecco bubbling between us, it took everything inside of me to resist enlacing my fingers through his own.  It was the way he leaned forward in his chair, lightly touching my hand to emphasize his point that made me want to do it.  It wasn’t as if I had any choice; it was either accept his gaze with my own or look down at the spot where I felt his fingers resting and wonder if I should grab a hold of them instead.  It seemed we were doomed from the beginning.  But how provocative and exciting it was to share two glasses of that Italian wine with bubbles in the middle of the workday. If nothing else, what we were doing was mischievous, testing the limitations of our characters and what naturally constitutes reasonable and responsible adult behavior.  (It would be such a wonderfully freeing moment to finally realize that integrity cannot only mean the opposite of incongruity; complication cannot be a replacement for a shallow excuse, and that life, well lived, comes with its risks that you consciously decide to take if they are even worth taking.)

But the wine.  It’s always easy to blame the wine: and the dress and the heat of the New York summer (unbearable), the casual flirtation, and the mystery of it all.  I imagined myself to be the unknown: clever, witty, whimsical, slightly exotic (erotic), and happily carefree.   He was the complicated one.  He was the one who made me want to hold his hand as he told me that he would leave me behind soon.  I shouldn’t care about any of it, is what I told myself over and over again.   

So we sat there talking about Italy.  At first I listened intently as he waxed poetic about how great it would be “over there”.  Of course I wanted to equate my experiences with the ones he hadn’t had yet.  Would he recognize the smell of Venice as I did?  Would he know the difference between Paris and Milan even though he hadn’t been to either place yet?  Would he ever sense the utter, paralyzed, frozen felling of wonderment when he realized how foreign he felt in the middle of it all?  Probably not, I thought.  I swirled the wine in my glass before taking another sip.  Life is funny like that- you can sit there listening to someone else tell you about their life, and all you want to do is interject what it all means to you. 

Of course, that’s what I got for starting a perfect club with someone: a self-centered, egocentric (borderline megalomaniacal) device to justify our faults and selfish behavior.

                “Did you see what she wrote?” I asked cutting him off mid-sentence somewhere between Florence and Perugia. 
                “Who? Wrote what?”
                “Oh, I am sorry- I guess you were still telling me about something.  I’ll let you finish.”
                “No, no.  It’s not a big deal.  I wasn’t sure what I was talking about…”
                “No, you were excited: you guys are going to Florence first.  What’s she going to do while you are studying?”
                “I don’t know. Walk around, maybe.   She’s independent.  What were you just talking about though?”
                “Oh, well.  That columnist. The one who just thinks she’s so great.” 
                  “The one from the blog you say you hate and that you never read?”

“Yes, exactly.  That one.  Today her column was entitled, ‘Tribute’ and her first sentence read, ‘Today’s my friend Bob’s birthday.  He’s turning 29, and I couldn’t be more grateful to celebrate his birthday because it was with his inspiration that I was recently nominated for a Pushcart.’  I mean, who does that?!”

“Well what did the rest of the column say?”

“I don’t know.  I stopped reading after the first sentence.  Unbelievable, right?”                                   

                “Ha.  That’s pretty bad.”
                “So she’s just going to wander around the streets of Florence for two weeks?  Does she even speak Italian?”
                “Well, I guess, kind of,” he starts to say and then finishes, “no, not really.”

~

Later I am sitting back at my desk.  I am slightly intoxicated but I am not certain it is just because of the wine.   I decide I want to write a story.  I want to write a story about love.  The kind of love you want to read about in stories.  Not the kind of love stories that I have to immerse myself in everyday at work.  Romance novels are not love stories; they are gimmicks.  I want a love story that is really a story about pain: pain, seduction, triumph- a story about love that triumphs over everything.

 I open up a blank document on the computer.  I start to type the first lines when I receive a new email in my in box.  It’s from him:
               
                “Lunch was great.  We should always drink at lunch.”

Today's Wednesday and I spend the rest of the day composing a one-line response.  I wait until Monday to send it.

~

We hold another meeting of the Perfect Club outside a chain coffee shop.  Today I look like a ballerina except that my hair is down.  I think he likes that I used be an actual ballerina.  I think he thinks it’s erotic.  I thought about that when I got dressed this morning.  I thought about what it meant to be a ballerina: strong and powerful, graceful and delicate, a nymph that demands your attention through discipline and self-sacrifice.  Discipline and sacrifice sometimes felt like discipline and punishment.  Pain and ailment covered in satin and layers of tulle: endless nights of aching muscles while stitching ribbons onto pointe shoes.   I thought about the dance we were choreographing on the sidewalk with the coffees in our hands.  Each step hesitant and slightly off kilter yet deliberate and forceful: a pas de deux of two leads.  It wasn’t about compatibility; it was about direction. 

                “Tell me more about Italy,” I say. 
                “I’m excited.”
                “You don’t sound convinced.”
                “No, I am.”         
                “But?”
                “No.  It’s going to be great over there.”
            I stare past him up at the buildings.  “It is going to be great in Italy.”
                 
                  Later he picks me up at my desk.  We are going to watch a soccer match at a bar with colleagues.  I am a little nervous: mostly it’s just been he and I and I am not sure how I will manage to share him with the rest of the group.  I am also nervous that he might ignore me the whole time.  I try to talk to the others as we make our way there.  But he keeps catching up to me.  I smile at my carefree power over him.  I think about how this is exactly the way a cool and calm girl is supposed to act.  I decide it will be fun to act a little bit aloof.  There is another girl there I’ve never met before but she seems to know the rest of the group.  She looks at us with shifty eyes.  He and I share our lunch and more people arrive.  I still feel nervous, and drink a beer to calm down.  I start talking to another person in the group I had never met before, and he asks me if I am excited about going to Italy too.  I smile and tell him that I’m not going to Italy since I’d already been a few times before.
                  “Oh,” he says, “I thought it was you…”
                  The group moves on to another place after the match is over.  I let him kiss my check as I leave the group to go on a date.  As he pulls away, he looks down at me and laughs:
                  “Your shirt’s stained.”

I look down at my chest.  I am wearing a white t-shirt and now just over my left breast I see a brown coffee stain.  I cover it with my hand insecurely.  “You know,” I start to say, “that can only mean one of two things.”

“What’s that?” he asks touching my arm.

“I think I owe you a beer,” I say and wrap my arms around his waist. 

                 

~

                  One morning we are having coffee.  This time it’s at a café across the street from my apartment.  I feel funny taking him there.  I think about how it would be nice to walk in and find him sitting there waiting for me.  I thought about that before I brought him.  But now that I see him sitting there—well standing there as I clumsily pour milk and sugar into my coffee, the idea of it seems even better than I first had imagined.  He waits for me before sitting down.
                  “Do you want to go to a museum today?”  He asks me.  We are supposed to be going to work soon.
                  “Don’t you think people will wonder where we are?”
                  “Let’s just pretend for one day that we don’t have to be responsible for anything.  We are in the perfect club after all.”                 
                  “Okay, sure.  Where do you want to go?”
                  “Maybe the Met?”
                  “The Met is nice.  I like the Impressionists.”
                  “We can see anything you want.”
                  “How about the library? Could we go there too?”
                  “What’s there?”
                  “Just books.  Miles and miles of glorious books.”
                  He reaches into his bag and pulls out a book in Spanish that he’s been reading.  He turns to a dog-eared page.  “This makes me think of you: ‘When I find somebody reading, my first impulse is to snatch the book from their hands. I propose to the curious reader the examination of this feeling: attraction toward the books, or impatience at seeing me displaced as the focus of attention?’”
                  “Next time,” I say, “you should read it out loud in Spanish first.”
                  We take the G train two stops and then change to the E train towards Manhattan.  We get off at 53^rd and 5^th.
                  “Let’s walk through the park,” he suggests.
                  “We walk up 5^th avenue to the entrance of Central Park.  It’s only 9:30am but it’s already hot.  I tug at the skirt of my summer dress.  We stop and buy a bottle of water and more coffee at a food cart. 
                  “Do you think it would be too early to eat ice cream?”
                  “Couldn’t be worse than some of those coffee drinks people buy in the morning,” he responds.
                  Our pace seems to decelerate to a stroll as we walk further along through the park.  We pass mostly nannies pushing strollers and older couples.  I think about how perfect of a morning it would if it wasn’t so hot.   He’s already taken off one of the shirts he was wearing the night before.    
                  “What was the name of the book you read from earlier?” I ask as we cut across to the entrance on 79^th street.
                  “’Those Who Love, Hate’”.
                  It was a peculiar title, I thought.  I wonder if he saw what I saw.  Does he hate her, I wondered. It must be me he hates, I think in self-defeat.
                  The Met stood tall and proud; it had nothing to prove with everything inside of it.  We walk up the 50 or so steps to the entrance.  By now I feel so hot I want to faint.  But I keep going, one step leading to the next; the next step leading to some possibility I hadn’t imagined before.  I wanted to dance up the steps, turn the moment of monotonous stepping into a sort of musical number: Step up, join the show, live like you lived never before… laaa, laaaa, la, la, la, la.  I step too far across myself, brushing my shoulder against his chest.
                  “What are you doing?” He asks bemused.
                  “Sorry,” I stutter.  “I guess I am just hot.”
                  By step number 34 we begin to debate how much we would pay to enter.
                  “You know it’s a suggested donation, right?” I ask.
                  “Sure, so 5 bucks ought to do it.”
                  “That’s terrible,” I say.
                  He laughs at my astonishment.  “Well what do you think we should pay?”
                  “At least 10,” I say.
                  “Fine.  10 it is,” he responds as if giving me this concession.
                  I turn around to admire our hike to the top of the stairs.  I feel him close to me; he leans his body forward so that my shoulder is just slightly resting against his chest.  It feels nice to have his body next to mine; to sense his fragrance; to feel his hand brush up against mine.
                  “You’re drifting again,” he says.
                  I take a sip of water and he reaches out and takes the bottle from my hand.  Our fingers touch again for a moment.
                  “What is it about a museum that makes people so serious?” I ask as he takes a gulp of water.  I watch him drink and resist the urge to take the bottle out his hands as he drinks the rest.
                  “What do you mean?”
                  “Well, first of all everyone whispers.  If they’re not whispering they are taking photographs of the art.  It’s like they are trying to be serious and cultured but instead of looking at the art with their bare eyes they are looking at it through a lens.  Don’t you think that takes away from the experience of actually going to a museum?”
                  “We’re not even inside and you are already judging it all.” 
                  “That’s not what I meant.”
                  “So, what’s your point?” He turns to face me as he asks me the question.  He looks straight at me, and I shiver and turn towards the entrance.
                  “Let’s go in.  Look, they’re showing a new exhibit.”
                  “What is it?” He asks as walk through the revolving door.  I hand my bag over to be inspected and pick up a visitors guide on our way to the ticket booth.
                  “’An Italian Journey: Drawings from the Tobey Collection, Correggio to Tiepolo’.  Oh, should we not go see it? I mean, you leave for Italy in less than a week.”
                  “No, let’s go,” he says handing over a $10 bill to the ticket agent. 
                  “For two?” Asks the agent.  I nod enthusiastically as she hands us our buttons.
                  “Besides,” he continues, “she’s not big into art.”  

      “What do you mean, she doesn’t like art?”

      “She’s just not that into it, I guess.”
                  “Who goes to Italy and doesn’t like art?”
                  “There’s a lot more to Italy than just the art.”
                  “Sure.  But there’s a lot to Italy that is about the art—the birth place of the Renaissance is going to have a lot to do with art.”                 
                  “I think she might feel that sometimes it’s the same thing over and over again.  It’s hard to have a real appreciation for something that you don’t know a lot about.”
                  “I guess I don't see it that way.  I mean if you look at it, and really actually look at it --whever is in front of you: a structure, a painting, a sculpture, a piece of tape on the wall, don't you think there is maybe something essiential about it?  How can you feel the same after you've seen it?
          “So, there’s no room for ‘art for art’s sake’ in your argument?”
                  “Well, sure—if you are not really into art.”

~

                  It’s been two weeks since he’s left.  I keep thinking what a relief it is to finally not have him around; I don’t need to think about him anymore.  Of course, I constantly think about how great it is not to have to think about him.  And then I start to think about him.  Sometimes it takes me a minute to realize that instead of not thinking about him, I am actually thinking about him.  As soon as I realize it though, I stop thinking about him.  Some days it takes me a little longer— hours.  Other days, I am climbing into bed and it's like the feeling when you suddenly remember the strange dream you had the night before-- I've been thinking about him all day.  Each time I realize it--thinking about him instead of thinking about not thinking about him --I get so mad at myself: thinking about not thinking about someone while actually thinking about them the entire time is exhausting.  He’s always there in my head.  That first moment we met, the time we passed one another in the hallway.  The afternoon in a busy sandwich shop when he saw me first and I danced around, surprised to see him, like an excited little girl.
                  My first day of my new job was today.  I sat in the director’s office and watched her type an email except she couldn’t type properly.
                  “I have small hands,” she says.
                  “I didn’t notice.”  
                   She continues to type with four fingers.  How did she manage to write an email, I wondered.  Her hands weren’t really that small; she managed to wear that ring after all.
                  Sitting back down at my desk, I am greeted by an email from him in Italy.  My hands start to shake and I click to open it.  He has sent me an email that includes the link to her blog—a sort of travel log—detailing their trip.  There are even pictures.  Immediately I click on the link and begin to read.  I close the window four sentences in and wonder what I am doing: why am I doing this to myself? 

           “A glutton for punishment, that’s what you are,” my friend Jane tells me as I chain smoke and drink vodka on the rocks a few hours later.

                  “I thought it was going to be different this time,” I say defeated.
                  “How can you believe that really?  No one leaves a relationship on a trip to Italy.  There’s too much wine and beauty there.  New York doesn’t hold a candle to it.”
                  “Sure, but what about love?”
                  “Who needs love when you have beauty?”
                  “The beauty of codependency,” I finish and stamp out my cigarette. 

~

                  Two months go by and the emails pile up.  Post cards arrive each week.  I respond occasionally to the emails—he knows me better than I expected.  He knows how to provoke a response.  I meet Jane again and she has already ordered me a drink.
                  “Jane,” I begin, “this time it’s bad.”
                  “What do you mean?”                 
                  I take out a stack of papers and place the postcards on top.  “All of this,” I say and lean back in my chair. I watch as she slowly starts to read through the private conversations of three months gone by.  I wonder what it all means.  Maybe it means nothing at all.  Words are words that are words that mean nothing but empty thoughts, musings, misunderstandings, and latent expectations.  And then there were the words that were said in person out loud.  Where was the truth in any of that?
                  A week later he calls.
                  “Where are you?”
                  “I just landed!”
                  “You’re back?”
                  “I’m back! I need to see you.  I missed you.”
                  “Okay,” I respond, already thinking it’s a bad idea.
                  “Where should we meet?”
                  “I don’t know.  A bar maybe.”
                  “Well, I’m only going to be in the city for a few hours—I’ve got to go to Boston tonight.”
                  “Oh.”
                  “How about coffee in an hour? And then I will be back tomorrow and we can do something fun.”
                  “Sure.  There’s a café across from my office, we can meet there.”
                  An hour later I am sitting across from him wishing I lived in a city where you could smoke inside and no one would give you an evil look.  But the moment I see his face and his smile, I forget about everything else.
                  “This would be so much better with some prosecco in front of us,” I say smiling.
                  He reaches out and touches my hand and then takes it.
                  “It would.  It really would,” he smiles, “I really missed you.”
                  “I’m glad you’re back,” I say taking my hand from out of his and sipping my coffee.  And though he is smiling at me, I can see it brewing in his eyes: there is dissatisfaction and disillusion in there.
                  “What’s wrong?” I ask seriously.
                  “What do you mean?”
                  “Something.  There is something wrong with you.  You’re engaged, aren’t you?” I ask and immediately regret saying it.
                  His face goes from pale to laughter in a matter of seconds.  “No, no, no.  I am not engaged.”
                  “I mean it’s fine if you are.  I sort of expected it.  But then I guess maybe I was hoping you weren’t but of course it would make so much sense.  If you got engaged, I mean.  You were just in Italy for three months.  And Italy is just so romantic.  There is all that beauty and wine.  Even if you didn’t think you were in love before or that you wanted to get married, all that beauty would definitely make you change your mind.  Of course, you are also drinking all that incredible coffee too.  That’s really the problem with New York.  The coffee.  It’s all just so terrible.  Unless you are at very specific place.  The café by my apartment for example has great coffee, don’t you remember?  Of course, we can’t all just live in my apartment, and go to the café, and then go home.  We have to live beyond it, right?  Life’s not just a series of coffee breaks despite the number of Starbucks located in this city alone.  Do you know they have Starbucks in Paris now too? What a travesty.  It’s like the way they banned smoking in Italy second after Ireland.  Can you imagine? They used to have intermissions during movies in Italy just so people could go out and smoke.  I am sure it wasn’t like that while you were there.  You probably didn’t even go to the movies.  You probably just went around and drank wine, and looked at all the beauty.  Did you see very much art?  I know you said it wasn’t a high priority but I hope she got over that.  I mean, who goes to Italy and doesn’t like art?  That must be where it all came together.  I am certain of it.  But then why did you write me all those emails and send me those postcards?  You even read the books I suggested you read, too.  I know I told you I didn’t look at the blog and the photos you sent me but the truth is I did.  And I saw the picture of you reading Hemingway.  Or was it her who was reading my Hemingway? In any case, you took my suggestion, which I just thought was great!  I mean, I am always suggesting books to people but I hardly expect anyone actually takes those suggestions. Anyways, I guess what I am asking is if you are engaged, and again, that’s just so great, why did you tell me so many times that you missed me?”
                  He looks at me, his eyes cloudier than before. 
                  “I’ve decided to move back to Paris,” I say before he has a chance to respond.
                  “You are?  Why?”
                  New York’s just not for me.”
                  “Oh.”
                  “I guess, in reality, I knew it wasn’t going to work out in the long run.  It’s just that you…” I start to say.
                  “I what,” he asks sitting up straight.
                  “It’s that well you and I… are you engaged?”
                  “No, I told you I wasn’t.”
                  “But you’re not single.”
                  He sighs.
                  “The thing is, what am I supposed to do?  You know that we can’t be just friends.  What are we supposed to do, double date and keep this up this clandestine affair?  That’s not who I am.”
                  “No, you’re right.”
                  “I know.”
                  “So…”
                  We sit there quietly for a moment.
                  “So, that’s it?” I practically whisper.”
                  “Nothing I can say will make you happy right now.”
                  “And the fact that you missed me, is that the consolation prize?”
                  “No, that’s not what I meant.  That’s not what I meant at all.”

          "So why did you do it then?
          "Do what?"
          "And why didn't you do it?
          "Didn't do what?"
          I feel drained. Everything I've been hiding inside of me for all of these months starts to weigh on me.  My heart feels heavy. I am not even sure what it is I want to say.  In the story I wanted to write those months ago, I wanted the last line to be as eloquent as a Hemingway novel and as tight as one too.  I worked and reworked those sentences over and over again expecting that if I could only put the perfect words down on paper then I could do the same in my life.  I stare down into my coffee.  I know I am going to cry, which just seems silly and cliche.  Instead I bite my lip and look back up at him.  His hand, those finger tips, have found their way to my hand again.  I accept his gaze and let him enlace his fingers in mine.
          " I guess I’m not sure what it is that I want right now," he begins.  "And I never lied to you.  I never wanted to lie to you.”
          I start to protest and then stop myself.  I let him look at me a little longer and then I stand up.
          "You are me- we were just not meant to be," I say, "but it was always pretty to think so."

     

   

                 

© 2010 Cassidy Flanagan