defense mechanism #10
James Bowden
Life continues on as if it had never stopped, as if it never were different,
and I continue to adjust. And by adjust, I mean call upon the same old
strategies for filling holes and feeling safe without your fingers wrapped
sweatily through mine.
Would you have guessed that Livermore would be so beautiful?
You’d not have been as surprised as I am. The peaceful plaza,
the vines across the fountains, the cool air calm against the small-
town buzz of the establishments.
The sky such a clear blue. The dead fields such a lovable yellow. Dry.
I can’t escape the feeling that I could be content, free even, here.
When the plane shudders and begins to roll, I ask the girl beside me to open the window with only mild
thought of how my actions might reflect (negatively) (advantageously) upon me. Oakland sprawls out
beneath us. I find her cute, unconventionally so, something about her voice and mannerisms, and find
myself cathecting upon her. I want to look outside, I want to look at her, I want to look at everything;
really I don’t care and just want to feel free to do any of these things and so I do them to convince myself
that I am indeed free and so I do and so I am. You cannot hurt me: I am an impenetrable fortress of
observation. I am curious as the clouds. I soon grow tired of peering around the plane wistfully
(deliberately) and thinking of how everyone else might be perceiving me. Dear god. I read bell hooks and
try to be loving toward myself. I vow to make a list of positive affirmations, soon, though I must admit that
the work I should do weighs more heavily upon my mind. I read Brooke Horvath. When the plane lands in
LA, some people at the front clap. It’s Southwest though, and really I should have expected it. Did you
know that to imagine something infinite, you can simply visualize a finite version and say aloud, that, but
infinite? I mention this because I recently learned that spikes are just high-dimensional smooth surfaces
projected down. Think 2-d surface, clench your eyes shut, pause, fifty! Around me, the world tends toward
the smooth. The sharp, the outstanding get worn down, probably not even into satisfying smoothness,
just to rough. Barring significant force to support said sharpness, or unimaginable gentleness to make the
transition less jagged for those of us not born polished. I sit in the middle seat, shoulders slightly forward,
so as not to inconvenience the two people around me, whom I might love, in any way. I close my eyes.
What else is there to say? What else is there to do?