Tell them there are no holes for your fingers in the masks of men. Tell them how could you ever even hope to love what you can’t grab onto.
—David Foster Wallace
I dreamed she married the only man I’ve ever truly loved. I’m sorry, she apologized with flashing green eyes, behind which something sinister swivels on a certain pivot we only sometimes glimpse and whisper about. I couldn’t help it, she says sweetly, earnestly. You understand.
In this dream I felt a shapeless anguish. No taut, clean lines, no clear words of reproach. He was long gone, anyhow. They all were, I guess. There is a certain nausea to this kind of deja vu: I’ve already felt these feelings, this spreading sick recognition, hot under the skin. Muscle memory. Why am I here, listening to these words, nodding. Even in a dream, a mask of contrition. In this dream was the third time I witnessed this slow-motion collision, of my heart standing outside of itself, its very own out-of-body experience. I-t c-o-u-l-d-n-‘-t b-e h-e-l-p-e-d, she mouths in slow-motion, apologetic, but also not. The heart nods, acquiesces, turns away. For I’ve already learned the hard way: what else is there to do?
In real life, this man is already long gone, married. We are friendly. But it’s as though my subconscious was searching out a hidden, ancient bruise to thumb. Maybe I am addicted to that wince.
I can’t walk away from what I don’t understand. This is probably why I teach. I look for motivations to be revealed. I ask myself, I ask everyone, Why would she do this? I have no answers, and maybe it’s the void that frightens me, that chasm of life in which swirls right and wrong, and the ways in which they fuck each other over, whispering sucker… to each other. Walk away, people say. What is the name of this flame I can’t step away from? I am that moth, beating my dumb head on the window, mouth agape. I can’t help myself. And I can see people look away in embarrassment.
In a busy Atlanta airport a man starts screaming. Blood-curdling, anguished screams. Everyone looks up. Locates the source, and then looks away. He is with people, he is being taken care of. Looks to be autistic, and something probably set him off. The why of things, maybe. We don’t want to be witnesses to that pain, pain with no discernible fix. We look at everything but each other.
