I just happened upon the external soul thing. The Girl I Call Miranda in this ongoing series of quasi-surrealistic mythology-in-modern-society stories that I write meets a good looking ogre and he sort-of-impulsively moves into her apartment. With him come this pair of green parrots. There's no explanation for it. It just happens. He never mentions it. She never mentions it...to him. She mentions it in the narrative. It's first person narration, after all. If she hadn't mentioned it, then we wouldn't know it. I say "we" and I'm purposely including myself in that. Myself, the author, is just as surprised at what The Girl I Call Miranda says. It's almost like she exists and I'm just the conduit for her telling her story. The girl who fucked a swan and bore an egg that incubated for two years exists somewhere totally separate of me. Isn't that charming.
So, the way the external soul thing happened, I hadn't even realized I'd tapped into some cross-cultural mythological archetype. I just went on for pages and pages about these stupid parrots and how they crap all over The Girl I Call Miranda's apartment's carpet and how they make all this sqwaking noise from the window sill. I don't do much research, not until I'm in need of a place to go. Not until I just want to prove something to myself or fact-check some thing that I may or may not have already learned. So, the way the external soul thing happened, it was kind of just a coincidence. Eventually, I was looking for some lore about trolls or ogres and I ended up coming across a story about a troll who held a princess hostage and the only way her true beloved could defeat him was to kill some parrot that was, in fact, the troll's soul. This is a Hindu story but that's not how Frazer writes it. He writes, "Hindoo." Actually, I'm not quite sure it's the same thing. I just think it is. Frazer's the expert, not me.
It's been months since I started The Girl I Call Miranda stories. It's been since at least December that the ogre and the parrots that are his soul have existed. I think of them every day. Those parrots. That soul. I hadn't written a poem for over a year and a half when I finally wrote one in March. One. I wrote a single poem. It wasn't great, it just was. It did it's job. It got something off my chest. It expressed it. I was OK. I wouldn't give me a gold star for it, but I might pat myself a bit on the back. The writing it was what was important. That poem was about bicycles; rather, a bicycle rider. The other night I wrote two poems. Two. I wrote two poems. Whatever they were about (the same bicycle rider perhaps in some way), they were about external souls. The things that people don't have anymore. Not that they share, anyway. I wrote two poems and they were each about external souls.
The second one I wrote, I think is clearly misunderstood. It's not about parrots. It's not about a bird. It's not told from the perspective of a cat. It's called "Trolls, No Better."
Lipstick wearing the remnants
of his parrot-soul,
took a bite while it perched with wicked eye
on my window sill.
He busies himself coughing up blood on the carpet
and I am napping, in finally-quiet.
Just because I didn't mention bicycles doesn't mean it's not about a bicycle rider. Just because I didn't mention ogres doesn't mean it's not about one.
On social networking sites, there's no escape. There's constant updating. Constant sharing. It's this link. This link that doesn't evaporate. There are backlogs in case you missed it. In case you missed it. Because that's what virtual friendship is like. You're linked-in. You're on. There's no time when you're not. In case they missed it, there's a backlog. In the cyber-net of extensive backlogging and constant presence, I know precisely the quandary of this predicament. I am selective about my virtual friendships. I have privacy filters set up to keep people at bay. I delete friends.
Now, he's my damed Facebook friend again. Fucking shoot me.
Now, he's my damed Facebook friend again. Fucking shoot me.
Leaving the market early last night, I made a phonecall to the one person that I didn't want to talk to. I'm not sure why I did it. Like I said, I didn't really want to talk to him. Maybe a part of me wanted to reaffirm that sentiment. Maybe I needed to prove it to myself. Cristy, this is you talking to yourself. You need to face the fire in order to know whether or not it's hot enough to burn. Just get a little closer. Once you feel the heat, step back. I'm certain that the thought process wasn't so eloquent. Nonetheless, that was probably a part of it. Prove it. So I did. I called. As soon as the phone started ringing, I regreted calling. As soon as he picked up at the other end, I wished he hadn't.
That's how things come back around full-circle. That's how it becomes just a reel around the fountain but not in that good way, just in that way that you're going around this damned fountain and not even going in for a spell, not even to get sprinkled by the water or splash around calling out for Marcello. You're just going around and around and around and, by the end of the day, you're right where you started with nothing to show for it, not even an inch above the hem of your dress is damp. It's not even damp.
Later on in the night, I send him a text and tell him that talking to him makes me "feel terrible" and that "I've exhausted the small role that I've had to play in [his] life." He responds that it's "typical" but that I probably knew he'd say that. Seriously, though, I spent the last hour before bed picking out green feathers from my lip gloss. Seriously, though, I still have the taste of bird-flesh in my mouth and it's weird since I haven't taken as much as a bite of a piece of chicken in at least thirteen years.
No more external souls. Not unless their of the non-avian variety. Damned birds make a lot of noise and crap all over the carpet. Totally not worth the price.
so incredibly true. all of it.
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