The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Pull up a chair

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I'm not the type who will say 'I don't want to talk about it'.

Even the painful topics have some sort of allure, for me. Talking is all I want to do, more often than not, and doing is the thing I fear the most. You can ask me about anything, really, and I'm likely to have a story which has a way of relating. You might not think it does, but I'll find a way of bringing about the common link. I admit to being bored with the repetitiveness of my words, but I get pretty tired of your cyclic stories too. Your woes are no different than mine, really, they're just as tiresome I'd say. You aren't a fast learner either and frankly, you seem more interested in pity than in triumph. I can't blame you, though. I don't expect I look a lot different from where you're standing.

Lately, I'm fearful and more than a little down in the mouth. It's the wrong time of year for it which is only making me feel worse. Oh, you too? Twins, then. What do you do to get through the gray days? Yes, I read too, but sometimes I find it hard to stay awake when doing so. The low-level flight of my consciousness eventually brings me to a soft, noiseless landing, and the words are lost forever when the darkness comes. It has taken me nearly two months to finish Nabokov's Lolita! I finished it this morning, actually. He knew how to write, I'll give him that, but I couldn't stop picturing a grown man fornicating with a plump-cheeked child which bled the beauty from the words. Does this make me one dimensional? Should I feel stupid for not being able to find the genius in it? Yes, I understood Humbert loved her, but it was a twisted love, n'est-ce pas? Still, like I said, the man could certainly write.

I want a drink. I want it to be as sweet as it is tart. I need to find balance in the experience. I have been longing for a bit of equilibrium in my life and can't find it in mindfulness or in eating spinach. My insides are wearing me out, often surprising me with kamikaze madness. I behave, I think, and I am rewarded with sick and pain, and can't decide if I'm being melodramatic about it. In this head of mine, I've decided that taking the drama too far is what will save me in the end, that by being mellow and nonchalant, I invite the frustration of my internal organs which will stop at nothing to beat me into submission. Does this sound crazy? Well, really, who are you to judge?

You look mildly uncomfortable there. Is it me or is it the floor beneath your feet?

Anyway, you're looking well, even if you don't think so. There is as much to admire in you as there is to criticize. I am looking at the good points at the moment. I am envious of your smarts, have been from the day we met, but it has to be said that those smarts are going to waste, now aren't they? You, my mirror image doppleganger, are letting the best in you wither and fade and it's strange that you choose to do so. Though you say you don't mind it, I can feel your silent aspirations and they are starting to shrink from the neglect. I fear they will die before long, just as my own are crying in pain.

What babies we are! This life isn't so bad. No damaging hunger to talk about, no carnage or significant blood loss to speak of. Yet, here we are, you standing, me sitting, both moaning without making a sound. Babies. That's what we are. The bodies have grown but the mentality has kept the baby fat, leaving no room for responsibility or independence. What kind of defect would you say this is? Is it genetic or learned? I've no light to shed, but I'm hoping you might have come up with something.

I fear the future, my flame-haired ringer. I fear it despite my resolve to let it unfold as it should. Though I've no control over it, just as you do not, I somehow have myself thinking I need to go after the reins. When I fail, as a rational person might expect, I recoil into my tiny, hospital-cornered world and weep big, voluptuous tears, like fat, spring rain. From in here, everything outside seems further away than it is, but I believe in the distance and find it soft and warm. When the weeping stops, I hate myself for having been too weak to deal with what everyone else seems to understand without much trouble. You're nodding, I see. You get it.

I think maybe you should pull up a chair.