Chelsea Leigh Trescott - A Red Spool
I haven’t written, since that reading.
There was enough of me that afternoon to surprise us.
Maybe. Had you been the only one that got to know me, this shame wouldn’t be exploitative or of topic to explore.
Maybe. We haven’t spoken about that. Though you’ve called, and I’m holding onto the scarf with which my neck was draped. It was from a trip, you told me, as if that were a big deal and it wasn’t, or at least wearing it didn’t make me feel anymore interesting.
In a way, dressing me on a park bench was like reading to a crowd. The difference being in the hour. It’s single action that pronounces the quiet, a hand-stirring scarf till the neck is a red spool, my hands holding a story close enough to me so that it’s mine, to read, close enough to me not to forgive how easy I am in giving myself.
You walked out, and sorry I wasn’t there, but was watching us leave. Curious mainly, and knowing, knowing then that I write what I shouldn’t know as soon as I do, that I read, in a way, to admit my aliveness, how unacceptable we’ve been.
Maybe. We haven’t spoken about that. Now that I’ve kinda dropped my head across a shoulder, watching you, touching a size of me few could wrap themselves around.
I recognize that’s will, and that maybe it’s willing me as well.
There was enough of me that afternoon to surprise us. Maybe.
Sharing is to lessen, is the way one becomes detached and then how another attaches. Can that be an excuse? Or what would it be, if sitting on that park bench, I said, we live off one another.
It’s already begun, said, it’s late too.
Had said, I am ashamed.
Since that reading, said, I haven’t written.
Because that afternoon, said, there was enough of me.
And couldn’t you have been the only one that got to know me? Said that.
Said not maybe, said, I know me and hear her and I am ashamed and what is said is not what’s written by me.
Is it? In a writer there is more, more than a room ever hears.
This isn’t an excuse and if it is, this is mine to say.
notes