Maria on YouTube is speaking to me in Italian.
she’s telling me how to pack a bag.
(another challenge, another frustration, another joy, another test)
Stò già abbastanza bene? am I good enough yet?
in whispers soft, Maria spins her tale, Of journeys vast, where dreams set sail. With nimble hands, she crafts her flight's delight, Packing tales and treasures for the starry night. and i’m following along, not too shabby, ya know? for being self-taught and all. Maria’s about to blockboard a blunt, crisp cart carrying grit, and her gruff bag crunches as it crosses skids and quakes across baggage claim.
but i am unable to focus.
i am unable.
there’s too much to ricochet. too many verbs. did i ever learn my own God or did that just happen by osmosis? i am distracted by Maria’s freckles.
uno, due, tre, … so many freckles all splattered around the place, quatro, cinque, sei… i am envious. i turn off the video.
why don’t i have freckles?
would my life have been different had i had freckles?
should i try to paint freckles on my face?
would anyone notice the new freckles on my face?
i wanna lick off those tiny M&M’s from Maria’s face. poppy seeds!
opium daze!
i smoked opium for 4 months in the 80s. i smoked it with my boyfriend. we were 17 or something, we were staying at his grandma’s house in Granada Hills. a photographer from one of my modeling shoots gave us opium in a tin foil square so my boyfriend and me, we were reading Don Quixote out loud to each other each night before bed so we were all hip to the wonders of drugs, (if you do it smart and spiritual not dumb and empty) so we smoked the opium and watched each other’s faces turn into other people’s faces and decided these must be our past selves. I liked my boyfriend best when he was a small-dark-faced fisherman with gapped teeth.
One day i said, “I think maybe we like this stuff too much.”
my gapped tooth fisherman stares at me with his jacuzzi eyes a glow. His hair is on fire, but I am not afraid. the room is a wet fog and my face is wet. the glimmer from the tin foil square makes my eyes sting Opera. i want to buy fuzzy ear muffs for his elephant ears but do they even come in that size?
“okay,” my gapped tooth fisherman says, “we can stop.”
so we stopped smoking opium and that was that.
when I eventually break up with him, he tapes angry epitaphs on the walls of our one-room apartment in Reseda. he goes missing for days. empty vodka bottles litter our apartment floor. his grandma tells me, “my grandson doesn’t drink. he’s allergic to alcohol.”
i can’t find him online. i’ve tried for decades.
i think my gapped tooth fisherman died a long time ago and nobody told me.
am i good enough yet? stò già abbastanza bene?