Saturday, July 22, 2006

Damage Deposit


For a brief time, my friend Priscilla and I double-dated on account of the fact that my ex-husband and her her ex-fiancé were close friends. Priscilla met the hideous Jim at a surprise birthday party my ex threw for me. I loathed Jim with a passion bordering on pathological. He'd dated a woman named Chris for many years, one of the first people I knew to ever take Prozac. She was a Goth (not a term that existed back then) and she'd bring her art installation pieces to parties, mostly small Cornell-inspired boxes that depicted crucifixion scenes of her as Jesus and her exes as Roman soldiers. It was, as they say, a real mood kill, but I took pity on her because she dated Jim and that must have brought crucifixion to the forefront of her mind.

And now my dear friend Priscilla had fallen prey to his evil! One night we went to a band practice (both our exes were musicians, God help us) where we found a secret bottle of vodka in the freezer and wasted no time in cracking that bad boy open. Locking ourselves in the only bathroom in the house, we got drunk and proceeded to go roll around on the garage floor until our significant others had had enough and put us in the backseat of the car. We started to cry in unison and tell each other we were best friends. Our soon to be exes looked back at us in disgust. They weren't Roman soldiers, but I could see where Chris had gotten the emotional truth of her pieces, those small boxes that could contain a world.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"People claim they'd prefer to die in their sleep, then wonder why they are insomniacs." Ann Nietzke, Solo Spinout

Insomnia

1 stolen bottle of vodka
2 glasses that can be broken easily

Benedictions and Maledictions

Damage Deposit

We are forced to give back all our keys, even
the ones we made ourselves, instructed to leave
as few traces as we can, although there are stains
that won’t come out from parties that didn’t want
to end, shadows of white where pictures hung. I fear
we won’t get anything back, that we have been here
too long. After we leave for the last time, I realize
that I didn’t make a final check and have left a chain
and some garnet stones in a bathroom cabinet, gifts
that I never got a chance to wear, wondering who
will find them, red against all the worn antiseptic
white, the only evidence that things were not always
the way we left them before shutting the door for the last time.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jim no like penetration joke.

Anonymous said...

Today's triple-header "Quote of the Day":#1:Strive earnestly and be assured that only this body of yours, and not your real self, is mortal. For you are not the mere physical form that your appear to be; but the real person is the soul and not the the physical body which people point to. Know, then, that your true nature is divine....And as the world, which is in part mortal, is stirred to motion by God Himself, who lives forever, so the frail body is quickened by an immortal soul.--Cicero;#2: "Offering": I made a poem/going to sleep last night,woke/ in sunlight it was clean forgotten./ If it was any good, gods/ of the great darkness/ where sleep goes and farther/ death goes, you not named,/ then as true offering/ accept it.--Ursula Le Guin;#3: Holy mackerel, Andy!--Amos, from "Amos and Andy."

Anonymous said...

Today's 2nd "Quote of the Day": Give War a Chance.--P.J. O'Rourke

Anonymous said...

Today's 3rd "Quote of the Day": And that most treacherous and tragic game of all, the indivduality game. The Timothy Leary game. Ridiculous how we confuse this game, overplay it.--Timothy Leary(speech to the International Congress of Applied Psychology).

Anonymous said...

Cajun Q,
A Rock Girl turned Foxy Lady. I like the fountain view, water dippin. Did rock band Jim go away?
R2 C2!

Tikilee said...

What a perfect sloppy drunk description Michelle. Rolling around on a garage floor and crying in a back seat. I love it.

The poem is amazing. It's a nice approach to a heartache that doesn't really involve talking about the ache itself. Lovely title.

Cheers!!!

Lee

John Ricci said...

Dear Michelle,

Another lovely shot and post, as always. Nothing like summertime, outdoors. So glad you're a Detroiter now. Our gain, to be sure, and from your posts,it appears to be your gain as well. Bravo!

Anonymous said...

You got even for the forfeited "Damage Deposit" with the absence of a "final check."

ZZZZZZZ said...

michelle,
another lovely post! like the picture as well. I might have to try the spell the next time heartache enters my life.... knowing me it should be soon! ;o)