w i n t e r
ox blood
I'm surrounded by pens. Permanent markers, advertisement throw-aways, highlighters, some with five colors, some with only three. Blue, red, green, aqua, black. Surrounded by them. How can one person use so many pens? Where did they all come from? Did I really pick all these pens up somewhere? I know I haven't bought one in years. Yeah, it's been since college. That was the last time I actually walked up to the counter, put down a pen and said, "I'd like to buy this."
So where'd they all come from. A quick count reveals 32. One shaped like Santa Claus and one shaped like a bone, you know, the kind a cartoon dog would be chewing on. The rest are more or less just regular pens. Almost all of them have one thing in common. One end (if not both) is chewed off.
So I'm surrounded by 32 chewed up pens. Ballpoint, felt-tip, and I can taste ink. I remember a meeting a couple months ago where I bit through a pen top and the ink seeped onto my tongue with a metallic bitter shock. I think it's 'cause I'm sick again that the details are sticking out. It's like all 32 of these pens are floating, occupying their own space within this dark office, pronouncing it to be theirs.
It's like last night when I wanted that same metallic taste. The pressure was building in the air and I knew there was a welcome storm on the way. The reservoirs are dry. The city is buying water from the next county over, and this storm was rolling in. I wanted a beer but in my delirium I knew I'd do something silly like walk in front of a car on the way down the street. It's happened before. I don't think well when I'm ill. Fever I suppose. But I did go outside, down the steps to the circle window and I lit a cigarette even though my lungs already hated me and I inhaled deeply tasting the bitter copper taste and the smoke like cotton in my mouth and I coughed.
I felt the smoke in my nostrils, burning the already irritated skin, the thin skin holding back blood in the tiny capillaries and I knew my nose would bleed soon. The immediate sign would be the thick sticky drip in my throat and again the bitter taste, the bitter copper penny. There was blood on the filter by the end of smoke number one and I lit the second noticing one of the eyelets in my Doc Martens had come loose. I'm really pissed about that because now I almost have to replace them, but I can't. The Doc's are old and they don't make Ox Blood in this style anymore. My choices are brown, ugh, or black. Black would be okay if it weren't the only other choice, but it's like being forced into a color that I know will last years and do I really want that to be...black.
No, I want Ox Blood.
Details.
So tonight I make a plea for a pair of Ox Blood Doc Martens, six eye ankle high boots. Size 8-9. Be better off with 8, but hey, I'm begging.
goodnight 11.11.98