Biting the Stars

For C. Lispector

And over there is as far away as my kitchen table. I have been waking up with a thin patience. I allow myself to sit here and write about how I cannot write.

Mom says us Fours always feel like something is missing. There is a fullness in the back of my throat. I slash my feet together in bed and grind my teeth at night. My hand is in the shape of an iPhone. I love it so much that I want to flush it down the toilet.

I think of all the things I want to create, and I think about thoughts I want to have. I imagine that they are terribly complex. I imagine getting recognized for them. One day they will be as real to me as an organ. I imagine that there is nothing between me and that day. Over there is as far away as my kitchen table.

Dad says the hardest part about running is putting on your shoes.

On the day we buried him in Purissima my cousin brought me a box of his things. In it was a notebook. On the first page was a map made of bubbles that were all connected. Inside the bubbles were his ideas, of companies he wanted to start, investments he wanted to make. How to create community, the right exercises. The map stretched down the page. Some bubbles were nonsensical. I read them all over and over and tried to understand his mind.

My father was not afraid of being seen trying. He had autobiographies stacked on the toilet written by people who made a lot of money in Business.

My father was not afraid of being seen trying except when he played guitar. In the precarious hour before sleep, I would hear the tinny of acoustic finger picking from the living room. The pine trees in our courtyard would scratch against my window, their feminine nails tapping on me, mixing with the music. The sound drove me to love. He had song books on the coffee table. He wrote in them with pencil. I strained to hear the melodies, I burrowed with them, down, down and down. I rested my fingers on them as I went, and the songs became my dreams. I imagined that I was a tightrope walker balancing on my father’s secret pursuit of joy. Maybe he knew he put me to sleep that way most nights.

Sometimes I would wake and wander into the half-light of the hallway. I used to wear his tee shirts to bed, before I grew up. The arm holes were so wide that I tucked my elbows back into them and held my flat, naked chest beneath the fabric. I could stand under the LED from the kitchen and listen before he saw I was there. I could follow the melodies clearly, but it made me feel sick. He would stop as I stepped into the living room, every time. He never played for me.

I think my father kept me really ethical. It was hard to lie to him when he wasn’t sick. When he was dying I lied to him all the time. I told him that we would get sushi when he was better.

Mom says us Fours always feel like something is missing. I was good enough for him. He used to tell me he would work at 7/11 to be close to me.

I don’t want to waste time trying to find that missing thing. Not while there are men writing horrible books. Not while there are women talking about biting the stars.

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