
The erotic cannot be felt secondhand. — Audre Lorde
It’s 9:28 on the first cold morning in November — the first morning in November. I’m wrapped in a blanket. I’m wearing two broken shoes. The left is ripped at the side-seam, a product of use. The right is ripped all the way down the side, with no mind to seam, a product of my weird way of walking.
In middle school, in Florida, we used to have to run a mile every Wednesday. Our gym shorts were oxford blue cotton and I hated them. They stuck onto your thighs like wet jeans, and then when you were moving they stuck up into your crotch and applied a clumpy sort of pressure that made you feel like you had a dick. It was horrible. Running this mile, in these shorts, made me so self-conscious of my thighs that I invented a trick-step, a sort of side-swoop, that wouldn’t bring my right foot down directly. Rather, my right leg scythed out, like the extension of a wing, thighless, and glided into position next to my left leg — and I did it again, and again, and again, countless step-glides around the swampy yard behind the gym. I hated it. I hated Wednesdays. I hated sweating. I hated running. I hated how Mrs. Bell would stand in the shade while we labored in the sun. Her shorts were tight too. And I remember never, ever wanting to be old with that feeling. I wanted to grow out of the big-thigh feeling, as if my step-glides truly were wings that would metamorphosize my body, my thighs, the rubbing — out of it — like the fate of the boys.
Did you want to become a boy?
That’s a logical question. But no. I only hated my thighs at school. Even at a young age, I was aware that my house-thighs were different from my school-thighs. I loved my thighs at home. I grew up in an Everglades wonderland. You couldn’t see our house from the road. Trees. Grass. Sunlight. All of it thick. Like my thighs. All of it thickly protecting me from the school world. And behind our house was the best part: A river. A dock. Always a sunset. I loved myself in this place. I never wanted to change. I’d roam for hours and never once think: thighs. It was only at school that my awareness centered on: thighs. Our uniform involved khakis, and these khakis were just as horrible as the gym shorts. In fact, they were so horrible I even invented a curse word for them: khakis.
Khakis was the curse word?
Yes. Khakis. Say it. Khakis. Khakis. It’s a word as ugly as the thing it stands for. It’s a curse. And my envy toward classmates not oppressed by this curse, those who didn’t press into their pants like I did, was limitless. I’d envy them all day. I’d watch them walk and envy, envy, envy. How must it feel to be wearing what they say and still have room left over? I relished winter days because then I could bring a jacket. Of course I never wore the jacket. I tied it around my hips and scientifically adjusted the knot so the sleeves fell exactly along my thighs. I’d look down and check that they did. Class to class. Always checking. They got greasy I handled them so much. My school-thighs were a constant torment. My home-thighs were the only relief. Anyway. That’s why I sit here, the first of November, 9:47 am, with two split shoes — two differently split shoes — on my feet. Because I walk that way even now. And my shoes show it. Anyway. It’s 9:48. My coffee is almost gone. I must confess, I don’t know why I’m here.
You mentioned an incident.
What incident?
A woman.
My mother?
No. I don’t think she’s your mother.
What did I say?
You mentioned a woman at work.
Impossible.
Or maybe a woman at the library.
Yes! Yes! The library woman! Yes. I did, didn’t I?
You did.
I did. OK. The library woman. Yes. She’s why I’m here today.
You said she ‘transfixes’ you.
I said that?
I believe so.
Wow.
That you lose the ability to operate.
I become a wax doll.
Is that so?
Yes. My soul leaves. Like smoke disappearing, you know. It just seems like a natural escape. Natural forces at work. There’s no push-pull. It just goes.
Violently?
Silently. Like a lover leaving a room. At midnight. Tiny scratches on the window from a branch. Your lover gets up while you sleep and leaves you.
Like smoke.
Like smoke leaves a room. And of course it’s ridiculous because a library is full of florescent light. It’s disgusting. It’s so so so bright in there. All the time. And here I am —
Transfixed.
Silently being left by my soul. At midnight. With a branch scratching at a window.
Where does it go?
I don’t know.
Does it go to the woman?
No.
So the woman isn’t involved?
The woman triggers the release. Like opening the top of a jar. But then what informs the direction of the post-release…
Natural forces.
Yes. Excuse me. I need to use the restroom. …. So, yes, natural forces. She unlocks the top of me, wherever that is located, and my awareness just sort of floats out.
Tell me more about that.
I’d rather show you.
Indeed.
So the other day I went to the library to return a book. I can’t remember which book it was. Sometimes I just go and pick something up and go back to my apartment and read three or four pages and then go right back to the library and drop it off. And the whole time I’m saying its sentences out loud. Imagine. It could be anybody. I could be reading anybody’s mind. It could be about anything. Isn’t that magical?
It’d be easier if you did that online.
It would be. But I don’t. The internet will never weight itself. The internet is weightlessness. Weightlessness is what it provides. But weighted words — library words — will always have that.
Weight.
Which is why I go. It’s like eating something when you feel dizzy. It settles my psyche. Anyway. It was one of these times. I returned a random book. The lights were blinding. Just ridiculous.
What did the library look like?
So it’s almost an atrium. Atriums are rounded, you know. But this space isn’t fully rounded. Vaulted, yes. Airy, yes. But not rounded. More geometrical. Stairs cut into the overhead space. There’s a few angles for the eye to nag on. Not at all like an atrium. So there’s that. Above your head.
And florescent lighting.
Yes, but that only comes when you enter the stacks. I have to give credit where credit is due. This library is full of ugly florescent light, but it’s also full of natural light. It depends on where you stand. It’s a very nice library overall.
Sounds like.
So I’m walking into all this natural light. And I feel powerful because I have an unknown book in my hand. You should do that. Try it. Walk around with an unknown book in your hand. Make sure people see it. Be seen with this unknown book. It’s not like your phone where anyone can access the same unknown things as you. This is one book and it’s only in your hands. You know that unknown better than anyone else. Try it. Feel that power.
I’ve written that down.
So I’m walking into this cut-up atrium of sorts and for the first time ever I decide to take the elevator.
The elevator?
Yes. I don’t know what prompted me. Usually, I enter that cut-up atrium and I ignite with all that height and natural light.
Like a cathedral.
No.
Oh.
Not like a cathedral. Not at all.
Sorry.
I ignite with that height and I run up the stairs — because the height is accessed by those stairs, remember. So by running up into the cuts, I ascend physically into the endlessness of the space. With a regular atrium you can’t do this. There’s no stairs.
There’s no stairs.
So that’s why I like this space. I run up into that feeling. One flight. Two flights — isn’t that a good word? A flight of stairs?
A flock of stairs.
Same-sounding, absolutely. A flight of stairs. Because we fly to them?
For safety.
When we fly — from danger — we use the stairs.
What danger are you running from?
Don’t do that. I’m not done with my first thought.
OK.
So I usually run up into that space. My flight. My flights of stairs. But I didn’t this time. I took the elevator. Can you believe that? I filled with that feeling, that cut-up atrium, it filled me — and I ran right into a confined space.
What were you thinking?
I don’t know. I can’t remember. I ran full-filled into a concrete box. It was like light suddenly was a sound. My eyes filled with a heaviness that my heart felt. But my eyes felt it. And the doors closed on me blinking rapidly. And she was there.
The woman.
The library woman. She was in the space.
The elevator.
She had on a peach jacket. Turquoise jewelry. I can’t remember if it was on her wrist or her neck. A drinkable green. It was on her. Little dots. On her. She’d been sprinkled with them.
The turquoise-green?
The specks of green, yes. Maybe her jacket was green. Turquoise. You know when someone erases a whiteboard and they leave the end of a Q? The whole board is blank, staring whitely. And that louse of a teacher has left one, tiny fragment of a letter? The end of the Q. On the board. And you can’t touch it. You’re powerless. It’s just there. And it’s boring more deeply into you every second you stare at it. And it hangs there so tenderly that it becomes a part of you, a tender-distant part. And you are ingratiated. And suddenly you realize that because it’s tenderly a part of you, the only way to remove it would be with an equally tender gesture. Something soft. Something so soft it’s silent.
Are we still talking about the woman’s jewelry?
It was like the end of the Q. And I wasn’t even staring. I just saw it once. In a flash. And I turned my sight away but the imprint was left on my vision. These tiny neon-bright speckles. Filling my sight. Like when you’re staring at your phone and you look away and the rectangle imprint stays in front of you. It’s the shape of what it was but not the substance. Something different, again, something that is now a part of you. Tenderly. Her jewelry, that turquoise-green, it was imprinted all over my sight as I stared at the elevator door. Like wallpaper. A wallpaper of sprinkled shapes. If I could only lick those spots. A light flick of my tongue. Tender. Tender. It’s the only way someone inside you can be removed.
It’s 10:26.
Oh.
You’ve written 1,860 words.
Really?
You didn’t think you’d accomplish your word count?
I didn’t think about it. I just said I’d write for an hour.
Well you did.
Interesting.
Same time tomorrow then?
Maybe. Tomorrow is Saturday. Same amount of time tomorrow. But maybe not the same exact time.
OK. It’s 10:28.
Fantastic. Thank you.


