The floor is cold. Cold as if the spirit of the Arctic stole South and hides under my house. Sharp pins like claws push through the spaces between the atoms of my floor. I am wearing heavy wool socks and genuine sheepskin slippers. The socks are a gift from a friend and the slippers a gift from another. The pins claw through these gifts also.
It is cold outside and cold beyond that and colder further away. Cold and empty is all I really have.
I had hoped that someday I would be someone, but I know myself and my core is empty. Everything around me reminds me of this: the slots on the toaster are empty. My tea glass is empty. The bowl on my teaspoon is empty. My house; even the crystal gazing globe on my desk is empty.
I have poured heat into the empty; lovers and travels, things and drugs and it has swallowed all and remains complete and full of nothing. Tears and rage and pleading evaporate. I am married to the Empty. There is no divorce and no parting.
Late at night, the streets are empty. My refrigerator was empty when I bought it. My shoes, all except this pair are empty. My pockets, coats, hats and sweaters are all empty.
It is the emptiness that makes us useful.
This is why I must come to love the empty, in myself and in all things. Even the Arctic, that is eating the heat from under my floor, I must come to love.
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About Me
- roberto kiam borderlineartist@gmail.com
- I live in a quaint, little town, plagued with the specter of speculation and commerce. I am trailer trash,with wishes for good dishes. I shoulda died long ago, but like a rescue dog, didn't. I am indescribably scattered. I speak three languages. I walk a tenuously, true path. I am lucky. For myself, for others. God, it is said, protects orphans, widows and the innocent.
3 comments:
My Daughter’s high school English teacher gave the students the following assignment:
A glass is half filled with water. Is the glass half empty or half full?
My Daughter responded briefly, in hurried handwriting and with some misspellings. It was so Leah. She said essentially that she would not stop to ponder whether the glass was half empty or half full. She would drink the water if she were thirsty or maybe there was a thirsty plant in the vicinity in which case. That was about it. I could sense the teacher’s annoyance but I very much liked her response. This was Leah’s genuine perception but it was often mistaken for indifference.
I do not believe that empty is something that can be talked about. If I attempt to describe empty, I am filling the space with my words. Empty is what I am saying, minus the words.
Do we have to remove something to be empty. Dishes from the dishwasher?
Food from the refrigerator? Urine from our bladders?
I went through a period where I emptied all of the furniture from my bedroom and just sat in the mostly empty space. The empty refilled itself in time. There is the empty page, the empty canvass and the empty mind that one strives for in mediation. Or the empty nest. The empty stomach. And then there is the gnawing stomach which must be empty and then some.
I can see how attractive empty can become when we feel cluttered in our space or in our minds. When my Dad died, I felt more empty than I had ever felt. But if I am feeling, am I empty. Maybe not, because I am filled with the feeling. The space that he had occupied was still filled with stuff, lots of “his” stuff. But it was empty, once he was no longer in the space. It was not a good feeling, that kind of empty.
I felt numb for a long time. Was that empty? Life was without meaning. I didn’t care. I was blank. Was that empty?
Are my suitcases empty once I have emptied my clothes and put them in the formerly empty, but now full, drawer? I really have no idea what empty is. Is it the opposite of full? Doesn’t space move in?
Is empty really empathy? ahhh.
what about a cold room. is the room cold or is it just without warmth?
beautiful space
the space where my mother lives in me is a little less crowded
whether we are or we are not physically bound
we are together in the lost and found
this place where my mother lives is mine to define
no race and no race and no erase
no words to distort or deface
no interruptions no other sound
nothing automatic nothing dramatic
in the quiet of the soul and the empty of the space
is where i find my most sacred place
beefree
within this quiet with me sit
take my words and quickly inflate
stomp on my ego in an attempt to deflate
gives me a reason to push me away
and to push away the things that i say
within this quiet with me sit
when i talk with me there is no space
there is no place beyond the race
the charge charge charge
of all that i feel but am not allowed
within this quiet with me sit
i cannot hear beyond the pound
the air that crackles in an ocean of sound
because with you i am the spark
and even a toothpick will ignite
the spite the fight the real uptight
why am i your easy mark
within this quiet with me sit
i am small enough to hold my own
my soul is mine and not on loan
when at our feet we fail to look
we see the sky but not the brook
within the pause rests the breath
within the silence we are put to the test
all this me that i call junk
is all that and more
it is my trunk
it is my jewel
and it is my funk
to stand in the sun and avoid the dark
creates a noah without an ark
when my words i rob of flavor
when my thoughts i seldom savor
it creates a crook that was once a line
it creates a hook on which i dine
when on my head
i thread my decree
i mislead you i mislead me
all this pepper and not enough salt
in the middle of the road is where i halt
in the middle of the stream is where i dream
within this quiet with me sit
what i fear i do not hear
from what i say i walk away
i am the cow and not the beef
i cannot stay and be a sheep
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