Office by Alex Penny
“What do you do?”
It’s a question I’ve been getting a lot lately. I’m new in town. People want to know why I left a city booming with opportunity for a small mountain town across the country. If my boyfriend is standing next to me, I let him answer first and hope that the conversation takes off from there, without ever returning for my response. He’s a lawyer, working remotely for a firm in NYC. When he looks away from his computer, he’s staring at mountains and trees - at life.
“Wow.” They say. ”How nice!”
They ask what kind of law, probably hoping to reference their favorite television drama. That’s what I’d be thinking at least…
“Insurance regulatory law.” He’s lost them. They turn to me.
“And what do you do?” What do I do… I always hesitate, taking the moment to wonder myself what exactly it is I’m doing. In New York, I learned to refer to myself as a starving artist after growing tired of listing the four part-time jobs I needed to survive as a writer in that city. Of course these jobs had nothing to do with writing, other than their inspirational value. Maybe I should start wearing all of my old track medals around my neck (the ones in my mother’s attic) and tell everyone “look at all the races I won back in high school. I was good at something once, see!” Of course, since then I went to a local college, dropped out, moved to Chicago to be a writer, failed. Moved to New York to be a writer, failed. Now here I am again, living in Park City, Utah and being asked what it is I do. ”I’m a writer.”
“Ohhh.” They’re impressed. That’s because they have no idea how loosely I’m using the title. ”What kind of writing do you do?”
“I’m working on a novel.” Not entirely a lie. I am working on a novel. I’ve written the same fifty pages more than 270 times over the past five years. I’m working on it.
“Do you have a publisher?”
“No.”
“What’s it about?” I hate this question. I hate it the most out of all of them. It makes me want to just give up and tell everyone I’m actually a drug trafficker. That would probably shut them up. Maybe not. I’d actually have a lot of questions if someone told me that. The first one being “how much money do you make?”
The truth is, I don’t even really know what the fuck this book is about. I know some of the characters’ experiences, but they’re pretty dark and when I start to talk about them I get faces that say, man, how fucked up are you? So now I get generic and call it a coming of age tale. I leave out the rape and self-mutilation and the main character’s stint in the mental hospital - anything that could implicate myself as a girl who’s been through a thing or two…
Yeah, maybe I’ll start saying I traffic drugs.
I look at you at times
too long for my ego but never
pulling my eyes when it’s you
I’m not scared.
And you’ll say
I love you too
because you know how pissed I get
when words are put in my mouth but
the thing is, you’re right-
you caught me
loving you
Sometimes I think about ropes, thick and rough, like covered in shards of broken wood, and my skin, raw beneath the twisted bond. And it’s not the ropes, but what they’ve done that has me feeling so exhausted. Though it’s more than that really because my eyes focus on scars, distracting me from stretching days into more than what I’ve let it all fall in to. And if I should happen to picture myself free from bondage, I think about how much flesh must be missing by now and that all wounds don’t heal.
I say I’m no victim, but I rape myself with the past and wonder why it never lets go.
I’m going through old poetry and prose pieces from both blogs - editing them and then reposting. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I’m hoping to send some to literary magazines that don’t consider personal blogs previous publication.
Thanks in advance :)
how far I could stretch my skin
how the contents of my body would poke through it if I didn’t.
I could be more-
no more
chains on this body
I’d moveAll of this could come to pass
If the past would self-
destruct…I wonder
She might be like the moon
the way she stands is more unreachable
than the kind of brilliance you can hold
but you know it’s been done by men
greater than you.
She might be like the ocean
holding so much you won’t see
and you’re drowning with the knowledge
that it’s there
but when you think of setting out into her
all you see is your own death.
She may have left words unused
like she knows why you pull your stare
and ration your fingers when they happen to fall upon
what you think you’ll never have
as she waits for you to make use of the present
and let go of the rest.
If my skin were red
but I called it blue
and demanded you see me as I do
I guess that’s on me
when you walk
claiming I’m not…
I
evaporated into the past
rained into the present
waited for the heat
knew I’d never stop
and lost sight of what exactly
I think I’m doing
here
Editor’s Note: You know, Burning Muse was started by Noelle… let’s pay it forward!
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I know your head is rarely in the
right place — you drown your
demons with too much
poison because we both know
you’ve been dead for
too long.
You and I are far too alike
to survive each other’s
slicing
scrutiny.
I remember the time you left me
alone in the hospital to
cry,
because your baby had finally been
cut open to reveal
a mirror-image of your
pain.
You looked away as though
I was a car crash;
the loneliness
began to eat away at my soul.
I should be used to this —
your loneliness
became my existence —
but I wanted to tie the
I.V. tubes around my neck
and drown myself
in your
lack of affection.
