ART DIRECTIVE

Thoughts of the Dead

from left to right:

I told you to slow down.

I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I’m so sorry.

You were right.

Thank you, Jesus, for everything.

Take care of Julie.

Remember me as I would have liked to been, not as I was.

I never made anything of myself.

I should have gone on safari.

(silence)

I’m so happy to be here.

Why didn’t I listen?

I never had a chance.

Where am I?

It smells like damp leaves.

I know you tried.

Do not do what I have done.

Am I dead?

It’s definitely easier this way.

I did it all.

Know that I love you.

What now?

(photo by AMR)

Pieces of You

It’s been 9 hours and 5 days since you died. I’ve thought of all the things I wanted to tell you, but they’re gone now–scattered. I’ll try to pull them together, to pull myself together.

I never knew I could love someone so much after only ten weeks. How could I love you more than my own parents I’ve known a lifetime? I don’t even know your name.

I never knew it happened this way. I thought it just happened. I didn’t know that it was a “process”. I didn’t know that you would go piece by piece, taking pieces of me with you.

I waited so long for you, for everything to be just right, for you to be safe. I did everything I could to protect you. There’s so much I wanted to share with you, so much love I wanted to give to you. It’s still there with no place to go.

Where are you if I don’t believe in an afterlife? I don’t want to think of you where you fell. I’d rather think of you in the ocean…free…

I had a dream that night. I don’t know if it was before or after the cramp. I looked inside myself and saw you there. You were okay. I knew that. I told your father that when we woke up and then I saw the blood. But I had the dream, so I still felt that you were okay. But then the hours passed, and still–

I hope you liked the Glen Gould, the Mose Allison, the Donny Hathaway, and all the novels, the jazz, the salsa, the funk. Even though I didn’t like some of it, I didn’t want you to take on my prejudices. I hope you liked the mangoes–a little taste from your future home. I hope that you have all these to take with you whereever you are.

I hope you remember your father’s voice. I hope you remember mine.

I should have sang to you, my child.

I am hollow………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I look at this photo and I imagine you at two. But I can’t remember the day attached to the photo; I have just this image. Or I think of you in my arms, your little face turned backwards, looking at something in the distance, your hair strangely unlike either of ours. We are walking, towards what I don’t know. This is what I have to remember you by–my imaginations–little threads that I have knitted together to make whole.

(photo by Leon Brooks)

Breathless

I don’t blame you. From the moment we met, we both knew we were runners. Women don’t ride trains for a living. And soldiers don’t run. But then I was no soldier.

(He chuckles to himself.) Not really.

I know you’ll be there waiting for me. I’ll know you’ll be forgiven because you did it for me. I’ll see you soon, my Love. Soon.

(photo by Lisa Broggi)

Fat Hairy Self (An Introduction)

“You look like you need this more‘n me,” she just chuckled when she offered me her smoke. She sat there, on a stranger’s couch, wearing my shirt and nothing else. Her delicate skin was already bruising from where I grabbed her.

She must have been 90, at least. I met her for the first time about ten minutes ago. I was walking up Washington and caught sight of her out of the corner of my eye. She was bare-ass-naked on the stoop of a four story walk-up, trying the knob.

I decided I couldn’t ignore her so I pulled the shirt off my fat hairy self and blocked her from the street. I opened the door. “Can I help you?” I asked her.

Long story short: she’s lost. I think she has the Alzheimer’s. She don’t even live in this building. Don’t know where she lives. The guy who’s apartment this is went to call the cops. She says she lives on Sycamore but that ain’t even close to here. No way she coulda got this far like that.

She musta been a looker back when. She obviously still cared about her looks ‘cause she still colored her hair. Blonde even. And, even now, she’s got less wrinkles than me.

I just can’t figure it. How’d she end up here?

“You know, I gave these up ‘bout twenty odd year ago.” She snuffed it out. I took her up on her offer. Well, they were actually my smokes. I was on my way back from the liquor store with them and Jack when I saw her. She took me up on the smokes but not the Jack. She was a lady.

I asked her how she got here but she just kept talking to herself about somebody named Danny. Then when the apartment guy came back in the room she looked at him all serious and told him that he shouldn’t ought to leave her like that. He knows better.

The guy just looks at me and shrugs. He never seen her before he says.

She smiles and she says she’ll let it go this time, but if he knows what’s good for him he won’t do it again.

Then she turns to me and smiles a real big smile.“Well, guess we should introduce ourselves. My name’s Dorothy.”