The Nightmares and the Soybeans

1997

the men at the construction site a woman told me that scientists did an experiment where a woman first walked past a construction site with her head down no one bothered her, no one noticed her everyone at the site left her alone then, later in the day, she walked past again in the same outfit, with the same stride but this time she walked with her head up, more confidently and that’s when she got the calls, the whistles from the men at the construction site and you tell me it’s not deliberate and you tell me it’s not an effort to keep women in their place

the mistakes he made I Ralph lost three of his fingers while on the job at his factory at the time medicine couldn’t save his fingers after that, whenever Ralph Bakutis looked at his fingers, he thought of the mistakes he made II Ed while working with a circular table saw reached up above him for a piece of wood and when the wood slipped he cut off the tips of two fingers once at the hospital he called his son asked him to check the sawdust- covered floors around the workbench to see if he could find them the doctors tried to reattach the tips, but they didn’t take after that, whenever Ed Kuypers looked at his fingers, he thought of the mistakes he made III Lester Massey agreed with a friend to each chop off a finger but after his friend chopped off Lester Massey’s finger he changed his mind about losing his own after that, whenever Lester Massey looked at his fingers, he thought of the mistakes he made

the muse, the messiah I I can see you now hunched over, pouring yourself into your work, scattered papers, dim lights flooding white over the glaring screen, in your otherwise darkened corner of the world. And I know you can feel me now, feel me rushing in through the window that you leave only slightly open at night, rushing in with a faint whistle, circling around your neck, curling up around your jaw, opening your mouth so slightly. You can feel my rush chilling your teeth. You tilt your head back, closing your tired eyes from your problems, from your future in front of you, on those pages, on that screen, under that white light. You let me open your mouth more and more, you feel me swirling around your tongue, down your throat, into your lungs, like smoke from a clove cigarette when you hold your breath to feel the high, feel the ecstacy just a little longer, or like steam rushing down your throat when you take a deep breath the summer morning after a heavy fog. You open your eyes. You lick your lips. I make you do that, I make you forget your world. You can feel me there, you can’t escape me. I’m there. I’m your muse. II And I’m sitting in my apartment, and when I reach out my arm shadows of my hand stretch across the wall. There is no music, but I begin to move my hands, like a ceremony, as if to a drummed out rhythm, like the pant of a mistress as she walks down the hotel steps into her car after seeing her savior, like waves at the sea slowly crashing at the shoreline. The phases of the moon are changing, and the waves are crashing with more and more intensity, with more and more power, faster and faster. And at this very moment you walk down a street somewhere, it is daylight, and you see the white moon peering toward you from the sky. The moon was looking for you. It wanted to watch you. You divert your eyes, step off the curb, and for no reason walk in the middle of the street. There is no traffic. You are safe. And the moon watches the stride of your step, and the moon watches my hand, and the moon hears the rhythmic pant of intensity, and the moon rises the water. We feel the drumming beat. The phases of the moon are changing. There is no reason why you should question this. You can feel me. I will keep you safe. I will keep you alive. I’m your messiah.

the nightmare The chain lock snapped as the voices poured out that filled my brain with death. the bespattered remains of what could be called my inflated ego clung to the curtains that were stained with rain and dripped from the bedsheets onto the champagne stained carpet. I only wanted to surprise you as my tears dripped down ice and my screams were only blocked by a blank stare. I never like that carpet anyway. the second death the outburst of the telephone the clamorous ring the josteling sound nearly threw me from my seat; as I spoke to you as the receiver sobbed I tried to console you to calm you down without hanging up altogether. Don’t apologize for the outburst for I don’t mind helping you through. I don’t need the help myself. No, I’m not going to go see him; they have to ship his body to me anyway. It doesn’t matter. He was a stranger to me then, and he is a stranger to me now. He is no colder than he was. No, I don’t want to say good-bye to him: I see no point in saying good-bye to a man I never said hello to. Or I love you. And I’m only sorry to see mother shake as she’s sipping her coffee. I hate to see the people mourn. He was such a good man, it’s a shame to see him go, we’ll all miss him so. No. They did not know of his yells and screams in a drunken stupor, or his terrible indifference; they did not know of the stubbornness or of the ice in his stare. And I can’t forgive him for leaving me long before leaving this world. Daddy, I am not heartbroken and I will not miss you. I miss not having a father. I have always missed the man who smothers his baby daughter with love when he comes home from work and who loves to call me daddy’s little girl. Father, I will not cry for you, for you died long ago. I will not cry for you, for you died long ago.

sometimes the understanding Sometimes the understanding Travels into the realms of the unknown All we can do is hope search dream Because we will never find. Sometimes the light is not enough.

soothe me just this once when i called you from the pay phone at the hotel after he hit me i got your answering machine i tried to tell you as quickly as i could a woman came up to me while i was in the lobby asked if i was okay that’s when i realized i was scraped up, bleeding i told her i was fine please just tell me you’re at home screening calls pick up the phone you think i brought this on myself, don’t you please just this once pick up the phone, listen to me soothe me just this once help me

sorry flowers i bet you think a box of candy is all you need to make everything better and you’d still say i need to lose some weight, sure, feed me candy, okay. i love “apology candy” as much as i love “sorry flowers” and people at the office keep saying i must be a great girlfriend because i get flowers at the office but then i tell them that they are “sorry flowers” and that the worst kind of flowers are “sorry flowers” because you’d rather have no flowers if it meant that you two were happy all the time. and no one understands what you’re talking about. and neither do you. so good-bye.

soybeans Have you ever jumped in a vat of soybeans before? It’s very strange, it feels like you’re a kid in one of those playground things where you jump in a pit of colored plastic balls. Except soybeans are a lot smaller than those balls in the playgrounds, and I guess they don’t have all those colors. Well anyway, I went over to his grandparent’s farm, and he decided to take me on a tour of the farmhouse. The cows were smelly, I made sure I kept my distance, and I just kept calling to them, saying, “hello, moo-cow.” And there were a bunch of cats running around the field, and we picked up a couple kittens and held them up high in the air. I kept asking the cats, “do you love me?” and he kept asking me why I was asking for approval from cats. Then we gave them some milk from his uncle’s farmhouse. And then he took me up a ladder to the top floor of the barn. That’s when he proceeded to take off his shoes and jump over into a ledge. He told me to join him. I couldn’t quite see what I was about to jump into, it was almost dusk, but I took off my shoes and socks and jumped in anyway. And my ankles sunk into the soybeans. And I started laughing. And I fell, and then I started to bury myself in soybeans. And then I jumped around a few more times, then I just started throwing soybeans at him. And then I just laid down in the pit of soybeans for awhile. They felt cool on my skin. I could feel the dust from them covering my legs, my calves. There are time like that, times when I just have to let go.

st. anthony’s medallion “A father brought his ten year old son to the cemetary where his mother was buried about a month earlier. It began to rain, and lightning struck the boy dead on the scene. It is believed a St. Anthony medallion worn around his neck acted as a conductor”. The sky is weeping again. For me. What have I done, this is my punishment for what? You did this to me, didn’t you, you unfair God? Didn’t I tell them I loved them enough? I went to the school play, remembered our anniversary. How am I supposed to go on now? My wife first, take her from me first, then take the only thing in this world that looks like her. That has her nose. Her chin. Why couldn’t I rip that medallion off him, set him free? Did I not watch him enough? Did I not love them enough? Why wasn’t it me? Why wasn’t it me? Why?

Copyright Janet Kuypers. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission.

This page has been by more than visitors