Robin Dionne is a reader and writer living in Rhode Island.
Robin Dionne is a reader and writer living in Rhode Island.
Half of a year is nothing,
the calendar equivalent of
a six pack after dinner to you.
I am your hotel rooms and shredded receipts,
a pint at the bar with your eyes on the door,
the missed calls we swear we slept through.
This time clock is killing me -
we are four sixes too many,
a second glass of wine at bedtime,
the weekend mornings I spend sitting still and counting
my out of state dreams.
John Blinkhorn's parents rented a small apartment in a blue row house, originally designed for local mill workers and owned by my English immigrant uncle, an unfriendly man who, in his several decades as a landlord, never could secure a reliable tenant.
At the age of eight, John was cursed with this address on the wrong side of town, but it was the least of his problems. In our isolated small town in the early 1980’s, there was no discussion by teachers of parental neglect - simply sending your child to school alive each day was considered sufficient.
Smelling of smoke and without a backpack, he carried his things in a stretched out plastic bag from Almac’s. By 11:00 am each day, he was in trouble for one indiscretion or another. Failure to bring in homework or a signed progress report in on Monday, peeing in the mop closet again on Tuesday (a weekly occurrence that year), regaling the other children with lurid details about his parents' impending divorce on Wednesday.
He was unwashed and underfed, always late for school with bruises around his eyes, and at the end of second grade, his family's belongings were put out on the sidewalk for heavy trash pickup.
I dreamt of him until I was twenty.
When I walk the plank to come find you in the
place where it is 110 degrees
you say "it's like Christmas"
and
when you take my calls late at night in the snow,
during which I tell you that everything is broken
and nothing makes sense,
you say "I will fix this"
but when you have fixed it
I will say nothing,
my voice lost
from months of repeating myself.
You are hell bent on
reburying the bones
that I dig up and give you,
cleaned off and perfect.
Piecing together our skeleton
has led me to
late nights and
red eyes,
coffee and
the same sad songs,
your short sweet answers
keeping me sleepless
for new reasons.
The only religion I have ever known
is in the shape of the list
I wash off each year
at the end of Ocean Road.
Consider yourself lucky that
it is too early in the season
for my superstition,
because
I am alone at the lighthouse tonight,
and I have the time to consider its flaws.
The paint peels the same and
the windows still need cleaning
and my mistake
has been to admire it in the dark
without you.
During the first
twenty-four hours,
I thought only of
your invented errands -
visiting the little city,
always on the way to
somewhere else.
Sixteen months of "yes"
and I am keeping track of the time
with the watch you put on my wrist,
because we are again
sleepless for the same reason.
When I am the wolf,
I am up all night
spiting you with ink on paper,
thinking about ways to destroy this
but
when you are the wolf,
it is worse -
you are up all night,
spiting yourself
by
settling.
With my help,
you have
mastered the balancing act
of steel toes on tightrope,
remaining upright for a year.
But with crossing me comes a shift
and alone,
that line will not keep you alive
for long.
I am adding and subtracting,
a ticking scorecard on my wrist:
mileage and distance,
how long you've been silent,
and all of the things
you might like better.
In the mirror this morning,
all white skin and blue veins,
practice telling yourself that underneath
there is only blood and bones,
yours and his.
Now say it out loud and
surprise yourself with
what you sound like
when you are alone.
Stand there until you are late for work,
again, and
repeat that you are just a person,
he is just a person,
and it will make sense
until the phone rings.
In the same corner
at the same bar
last night
in the little city,
I explained the meniscus,
- the tension on the surface of our drinks
and you said
"besides my grandmother's watch
what else do you have up your sleeve?"
for Z
I have spent the year
following cigarettes and sawdust,
solving for unknown variables
at the end of the alphabet
and
when I said that your love
is always a day too early,
what I really meant was
I have learned
to set my watch.
Overnight last winter,
I talked you
in circles
through snowstorms,
debating the importance
of the lighthouse during the day -
and in the morning,
our problem is
everything you own
and
everything I don't.
I cried until my father gave in and drove me to Tracy's third-grade birthday party at United Skates of America, hosted by her mother, who always dressed too young for her age in tight jeans and a jacket meant to look like real leather but which fooled absolutely no one. The cake was big and cheap, the kind with blurry icing flowers, and Tracy's mother cut it up into tiny pieces while we sat at a splintery picnic table in a cloud of cigarette smoke and bleach blonde hair, swearing about her absent husband, who had been arrested, again, the night before.
I went home jealous that my own birthday parties were smaller affairs, held next door at my grandmother's house, too young to see that I had it better than she did, my family just as poor but boring and arrest record-less.
All of these years
meeting family members,
playing the host at holiday parties,
celebrating birthdays and anniversaries,
I was sure that
having it all
meant
someone loyal to me
that I did not truly want,
and I was wrong.
It is the coldest night of the year
and I am working late,
checking the locks
and taking your pulse,
trading my short stories
to you and the ghosts
in exchange for
whiskey and the wrong words,
waiting to connect the dots
or draw the line between them.
Three years ago, you made a deal
with a different smiling woman
but now,
driving home,
it is my voice
you are looking for.
I have always struggled to be
committed without committing,
practicing on unsuspecting others,
and
I am paying for it now,
these ten thousand tiny love notes
as currency that
I cannot exchange
for
the things that I want.
Late last spring you found me,
secretly watching from above
while I searched
twenty-seven thousand square feet
for you.
Over half of a year,
we became sad songs
and long drives,
coffee and
new lines on my skin.
This winter,
I will
keep collecting
the small things,
writing them down until morning,
happy for now,
because we are
sleepless for the same reason.
Our regularly scheduled silence
has me breaking my own heart by dinner each night
and when the line goes dead,
I know I have to put on
my red lips,
that dress,
and sit across from the person
I’ve turned into a stranger,
silent and counting the hours we have left.
This game we are playing is
dangerous enough
without imagining
coming home to you after a long day at work
or
you laughing next to me in the dark,
the two of us drinking whiskey together in a far away hotel bed
but
I am committed to this crime
and setting my alarm an hour earlier to
spend more time on camera
before you tell me you’re done.
In real life,
I am someone else’s dirty laundry and unpaid bills,
the dusty footprints on their floor -
but here,
listening for footsteps
with your eyes on me as I climb the stairs,
you think I am perfect
because you get to leave.
The night you asked me to marry you,
we drove up Route 6
and Route 44
for hours,
until the sun rose.
You left me on my doorstep,
went home and asked your parents
for your grandmother's diamond
but
I was gone before we figured out
my ring size.
Five years ago
on a very bad day,
I broke an antique light fixture.
I was angry and pulled too hard;
it came off of the wall
and fell apart.
I can no longer remember
what made me so angry.
By the time I made it to the
Korean War Memorial,
my father and I
had not spoken
in two months.
In five years,
I will not remember
what made him
so angry;
he will.
I put that light fixture
back together
and I put it back
on the fucking wall
myself
so I could tell him
that I do not need him
for everything.
When your throat hurts and I make an unwise purchase,
you say
"Fishermen's Friend is the unfiltered cigarette of the cough drop world"
and
too drunk at the Hurricane Katrina museum,
you say
"Fats Domino's house looks like a Baskin Robbins"
loud enough to offend the elderly tourists who surround us.
Hungover in a hotel bed, wrapped in white sheets
I am watching the clock and
you say
"Look up Kenny Loggins on Wikipedia"
and I do,
because there is nowhere we need to be
this early.
for josh