Today I spent the day with Things.
With forks, the refridgerator, the refried beans and the rugs.
With the sheets and the shoes, towels, lemons and limes.
We spent our time together.
I told them jokes, shouting from my desk as the job searching wore on and on.
They didn’t so much as snigger.
Things do not make very good audiences.
I told them about my uselessness, my failure, my fucking stupidity and shame.
I assume their silence was attempts at condolence. But that might just be the way they laugh.
Books are good listeners. They don’t mind being brought into the bathtub as one tries to relax. They don’t complain when they are thrown to the floor so you can dunk your head under. Get your hair wet. Test yourself.
They count with you as you hold back, tick back the seconds. They applaude with the water droplets when you fling your head back and can’t take the burning in your lungs.
They clap. You bow. “That was very good” they congratulate.
The soap dish is less impressed. It does not wish for change. It holds soap, not your head. You cannot curl up into it and hope to shrink. “Use the sides of the tub” it insists. “My problems aren’t yours. Be as small as you want to be there, but not on me.”
The front door opens: That means a new thing has arrived.
What will new thing do?
Does it smile and talk? Does it wonder where you are? Does it call out? Does it wonder what is wrong with you? Why is your face red? Why won’t you talk back? Why do you ask it to leave while you change? It has seen you naked before. Confused the new thing waits in the living room.
{ you are alone again. alone with the things }
Till when?
Can it understand tears? Or sounds of rage?
Or is it like the toothbrush?
More things.
Louder, bigger, softer, smaller. More.
More things.
Tomorrow I will spend another day with the things.
And maybe become one of them.
