Did You Know There’s a Statue on North Street (and accompanying photographs)

                        SPEAKER
Did you know there’s a statue on North Street that looks
just like you? I saw it a couple days ago — Thursday
maybe — and God, it’s uncanny. They got everything down
just right…the trimmed beard, eyebrows drawn into a
frown, the bridge of his nose a little crooked—you. You,
the way you appear to me in dreams, stern and forthright,
white eyes white limbs white teeth white everything: like
calla lilies growing in the backyard, like glasses of
cold milk coating your throat with film, like ghosts in
movies with holes for eyes.

Even his hands looked like yours: big and rough. You were
always handing me things…discarded egg yolks, hunting
rifles, invisible things kept in the gaps between your
fingers. They were resting at his sides but I could
imagine what they would look like balled into fists.
Knuckles tensed and writhing under raw skin. How they
would be warm against my face when you covered my mouth
with your palm and said I hate you so much right now and
Please don’t make it worse.

Anyways, I thought about going back, sitting with him,
freezing cold and still in my work clothes because I know
you’d hate it, looking him straight in the eyes and stuff
like that I never did with you. Maybe telling him about
how it feels to take molly from a stranger at a club and
how wings aren’t as heavy under the moonlight, maybe
showing him the bruise I got the other day and hoping
he’d get some ice for it. Maybe holding one of his brass
hands.

So tonight I hailed a taxi to take me to North Street and
halfway through, I realized I had no cash and I
shouldnt’ve told the driver that, but I felt bad so I
did,
and he threw me out on the sidewalk which I bet he wanted
to do anyways. It’s cold, just like I knew it would be,
and I never could tell East from West so I found a
payphone and thought I’d call someone to get me and I
realized the only number I have memorized is yours.

It’s filed away with all the things I wish I could
forget. Like what a grown man looks like crying on the
bathroom floor. Like the ringing that’s left in your ears
when you stand too close to a church bell. Like the time
that mouse died in your hands. Do you remember that? Did
you know before it died that that mousetrap was
pre-poisoned? I bet you did — didn’t you. Don’t you
realize that you can kill something without using your
own two hands? Do you blame the stones and the nails, not
the Romans?

Anyways — it’s pathetic — I know. I guess I never really
found someone else’s number to memorize and that probably
makes you feel triumphant, doesn’t it? Yeah. No, really,
you’ve won. You’ve won, because there’s this sort
of…chain…that’s fixed around my wrist at all times
and it’s always there, making everything feel wrong,
pulling me into alleyways I don’t mean to go down, into
church pews on my days off, and I don’t catch fire under
the doorway but I do feel these…whispers of shame,
running down my back like cold water, like the way you
used to tilt my head back in the kitchen sink and pour
pitchers of soap over my hair.

And it’s getting to me, Dad. Wrestling its way into my
spine and turning all my white blood cells red, choking
me at the place where my neck fuses to my shoulder,
constantly inventing new things for me to be afraid of.

Is this what you wanted? To wear me out so you could
finally tack me to the wall above the mantle, to keep me
on this carousel of doubt until I forget how old I am, to
make me believe in you like I always wanted to? …Still
want to?

On weekday mornings especially I sit in my empty kitchen
and wish you would pour cereal into my mouth. In
springtime especially I wish to stand under a cherry tree
while you shake the petals down and pretend it’s snow. On
my birthday especially I look in the mirror and wish you
had made me some other way.

You don’t have to call me back.
I hate you so much right now
And please don’t make it worse.
SPEAKER hangs up the phone, walks away.