The Olive Press Review

Tag: grief

  • The Flexibility of The Body.

    The Flexibility of The Body.

    Amanda Schlicht's avatar

    Amanda Schlicht

    It’s past seven. I have broken my sobriety twice, if the first time didn’t count enough, and the cider beside me reeks of berries. I can only stomach fruits these days. My body burns, terribly so, each eye hums till the tulips double in sight and each finger becomes diminished by the slight intoxication I gave way to; my shoulder’s ache past relative relief and so in the intolerable heat of fermented cider, the shirt must come off. I am a woman once more. The breasts lean forward, the stretchmarks are abhorrent as they are lovely, and when I fall upon the corner of the shower, I can only find adoration in the body I can call my own. There is much I could say, defiantly, upon every marker of humanity and history and achievements and abilities, yet in a state where the alcohol has marked my singular body as a conscious being capable of love and generosity, each sip pushes me to the conclusion toward this feminine mind and artistic hands and moveable body. In some short, painfully illiterate way, here is everything I once felt about my co-existence of a woman, with a kissable mouth and rough skin.

    i. I cared willingly, fervently, and when religion struck upon my mind, I prayed, in an odd stance and with sweaty hands, about all I could not heal. It was painful in such a small body, poised to know the ruinous emotions and overwhelming fixation of love, yet not act upon them. My body was theirs unknowingly, and rather irresponsibly, and by natural law, I enacted my own child-like persecution, where I dreamed one could read my mind and such unnecessary devotion would be met with consistent understanding; I homed confusion. Still, my sacrifice meant something to me, in tiny jersey’s and shoeless feet, and from this I had come to know of such strange intimacies we pursue so willingly. I was tender as every nine-year-old is, and in big ways, I never knew how to say ‘Thank you’ at birthday parties and on Christmas days, but in some small ways, I knew of you, which meant I still knew how you felt eight years later (and the way you made your breakfast each morning). If I think about this matter at all, it does little harm to know I have never been in love at all, but simply by the condition that I do love, and therefore it must exist.

    From this, as a woman, fundamentally, the simple notion of love seems relatively simple for all the emphasis I put on making sure it was known; most people already know the love you feel for them, its awkward escapades and horrifying experiences are congratulatory. You love well enough, I should say, if doubts toward the softness of your hands ever claimed such tender inabilities, look in your medicine cabinet quietly, you will find all the remedies you salvaged just to save yourself once more.

    ii. We believe we are crazy, sometimes excitingly, as if the blood on our teeth was as clean as water. War-like screams, collapsing chest and mascara tears, all we know coincides with all we’ve felt. It feels structural, as if each cell holds its own grief, some lingering territorial part of longing, until each atom lacks in further development. I could uphold every name given to me, should you question if I have cried harrowingly, devastatingly; it is similar to cell division sometimes, while others fail to beat out by odd laughter. Completely, it is simple, all of this is simple, we cry, scream, puncture, scrape, melt, sing, must we remember how they felt. We wish to know of the devastation, and if we are smart, remember what brought us to strikingly still.

    [the window knows only the cold, the beating of wind upon its frame. I wonder if the heat will melt its body this summer.]

    Girlhood. (!!!)

    pajama parties. makeup and the use of our faces as dummies. princess dresses and our mom’s high heels. press on nails till our fingers bleed and glue that sticks to the sofa. the fear the first time we shaved; the liberation which follows; the begging of people’s hands upon hairless legs. our dad’s oversized shirts as nightgowns. hot, burning, blurring showers. rosy cheeks near the ocean and hopeful eyes in the forest. fashion shows and the swapping of clothes. showers of compliments in the bathrooms at bars; lipstick stains on each mirror as we walk out. the hugs, the touching shoulders, the grabbing hands to pull you into stores. mirrored grief and lack of apologies. selfies and videos and moments all hung upon the wall cased in spotlights. code names of the fruit we ate that morning to the boy we desperately look for. calendars, post-it notes, to-do lists, weekly chores and monthly meetings. the cheeky feeling of the hand over our mouth as we spill our secrets. matching outfits. spilled nail polish, wine, tears, dipping sauces, car keys, ice cream, white pants. the obsession of virginity and the relief that followed. journals and photo albums and burned letters. the synced nausea and white underwear that follow the cramps, panadol, hot water bottles, muscle relaxers, and the eventual fetal position. the anger turned to sadness we held toward our moms; they were girls once too; they could have still been girls now. telling everyone the price of our new shirt we got on sale. flowers, in excessive, in every color, on some continuous loop which holds the remnants of heartache away. our intelligence and the dreams that follow. holding love between the skin on our fingers, knowing it was enough, in some way, in some light.

    [Pause, once more, the shirt is coming back on. I digress.]

    GMT 21:00, Apartment 1, City Center

    (the difference in name is by want and honed acceptance.

    the mind has always been more flexible than the body)

    ME

    Is it pleasureable? You know,

    (pause, some sort of exasperated sign)

    was any of it pleasureable?

    MYSELF

    Were you happy? I am failing to understand the question. Were you happy with the outcome. Was this what you wanted?

    ME

    (confused in the manner of her question, she can only lean upon the frame of the bed)

    That is not really a question. I am happy all the time, you know that very well. I don’t see how any of that matters when it is pleasure I am seeking to understand. I don’t think where this has any place in our conversation. It is unknowing, like some spineless creature with no care of those around them. You can’t want if sacrifice has to exist.

    MYSELF

    (always smiling knowingly, she knows herself so well)

    What do you want? Think slowly, like some spineless creature, as you call it, and if they had no care in the world, what would they want?

    ME

    (her pause is predicatable and depressive. rather inconsolable in the possibility of the question)

    I would think of them as greedy, selfish probably, with to much attention to themselves. Maybe sinful to some people, I wouldn’t know who to hand my desires over to. Its some overflowing laundry basket, and quite frankly, I don’t have the time to seperate all the colors and whites. What’s the point anyway, if they are my wants, they could live in the same soapy water, for all I care.

    (pause. she is conflicted ones more. her body turns

    away from the speaker, a clear line to the city outside.)

    Should I care?

    MYSELF

    You could. I am in no position to point out such cares for you. Ultimately, your desires will slowly die with you, along with each passion and secret dream you have written about in your journal, and while you think you are doing some justice to the world, maybe even to yourself, you are too big to fit back into the box of self-repression as a term of endearment. You are older, not as malleable as a child, yet not old enough to simmer in lost opportunities, and while you think your life is over because everyone else has moved on, you still have to fend for yourself. How are you going to do that? You could care, unabashedly about everything and everyone, but what do you want?

    ME

    (she paces, clear on what she wants, but one more question must be answered)

    What about my mother? What did she want? Could you tell me?

    MYSELF

    (She should have known such a question would appear.

    All she can do is smile kindly)

    Such questions hold irrelavance, my dear. If you can do my the favor of answering the question, I fear my time is limited. All I wish is to hear all that you have wanted. Could you give me something so little?

    ME

    If I must. I want to be nice.

    MYSELF

    (astonished, she interupts seemingly frustrated)

    That can’t be…

    ME

    (Interjects)

    And weirdly strong, like you look at me and you wouldn’t know all that I have went through. And I want to love myself, annoyingly might I add, that I make myself blush when I look in the mirror. Oh, and maybe a little greedy, where I am the first to take a shower, or eat, and maybe I leave the dishes in the sink overnight, because who else is going to do them or really who cares? I wouldn’t really know what to do with myself. [pause] I think I would be happy then, brilliant even, and even when time did sculpt my face and make me knarly per se, I would know who I was. I would enjoy all the time in the world with myself. Who wouldn’t want to be someone so radiant?

    MYSELF

    Then, everything will be pleasureable. Or, by the way you’re looking at me, I am guessing you want to know if you feel the pleasure, am I right?

    [slight nod]

    Well, that I don’t know. Maybe you have always felt pleasure and never knew it. Maybe it has never left you like you thought it did.

    [a quiet smile]

    You know, you never left yourself? You were always here. What is to say about those desires to not wash dishes tonight? I don’t think that was spontaneous, nor do I think you have even recently felt like that. You, the person in front of me, has continually smiled and dreamed of momentous events and found ways to feed all the clothes you currently own. You were never not whole. You were you.

    (They both stare at each other. ME can only nod, gently, before she begins to look for her stuff, gathering her phone and keys upon the bed, as she stands up to head to the door)

    MYSELF

    Oh, and before I forget, when you asked me what you mom wanted, she was very short with her answer. She just wanted you.

    [The cold has gotten to me. I must leave quietly, tonight.]

  • Why You Should Think of Death More Often When Speaking of Love.

    Why You Should Think of Death More Often When Speaking of Love.

    Amanda Schlicht's avatar

    Amanda Schlicht

    Standing at bus stops, pulling apart my groceries in self-serve checkouts, a cafe run only achieved once, traveling to cities to merely see a performance — I am a woman saddened by natural inabilities to know of their existence, or rather the knowledge I would not see them again, not in this context at least, and so therefore I would never know them at all. The endpoint of loneliness has become a gateway to basic emotions, an allowance to decenter the disturbance of our own existence to allow relationality to develop. We nod, pat on backs till both are comforted, and then our feet catch upon another sidewalk as all we felt fades back once more. We as humans all condone the inevitable action of self-wallowing, the disgust that is simplistically natural, but action is not even limiting in this field, we as humans grieve over everything… Maybe I just do.

    There is an imprecise grief that comes with December, an unknowing baggage of words and feelings I will not admit to myself. I am alone and have been for a handful of years and while I should not be shocked by my inability to persevere past continual crying, I appear to collapse upon myself each year when people are willing to hold you longer or feed you more. I am not sixteen anymore and it’s December and while I thought my life was ending four years ago when my walls were chalkboard black and I couldn’t run from my mattress on the floor, I am diminished with the knowledged I can never go back, never once, no matter how loud I shout.

    I think of death a lot. I am not precise in eventual conclusions, nor have I created any foundation suitable enough to not fall apart when speaking on this issue, but simply if I were to pull apart my skin until I am a slight movement of my soul, I might understand all I have ever loved. I feel ashamed of my inability to pinpoint any current state of passion, whether I ponder on the embrace of romance or the sum of my debts, and so my lacks become more concurrent with this present baseline of ‘what if’ and it is clear I am struggling. Oversharing is a must, so I will leave it at this: Love can be more than what you are giving it. Yes, it can be brilliant and toe-curling to where you question if you were only in pain because you were fifteen and not because your scars didn’t heal, and while you ignore your family for the tiny minutes you feel you now live with as you lay by their side, there was always beauty in knowing that love can be a sacrifice of death, that even though they had passed away three years ago and you happen to drive by their gravestone on the way to work each morning, you always honk your horn and laugh till you can only smile, and somewhere in the distance a horn hocks back.

    I feel too human. I should laugh at such a statement knowing that empathy is bound to exist in this body, but I am simply too scared by how damaged it makes me. By this I become territorial of my own grief, the inconsolable sadness proctored by my very own hands and situated beneath clothing far too loose for my liking. It is through this identification, I run. My knees are raw and aching so I must account for the bruising and muscle spasms, but I repented, I apologized, I told them I was sorry, please laugh with me once more, I am bound to wonder how that sounds next to me at night. We all looked like the moon and it was hard not to whisper that you held the light more, it seems the universe sings only for you. I should have fought harder. 

    When you first decide to die, you thank yourself. It becomes peaceful to hear each breath as water only purifies and no longer burns. You apologize simply and your hatred no longer feels like a target but rather a confidant. An inconceivable normalcy is bound to exist with your unruly decision – you did not mean to be cruel, the harshness could no longer be contained to just yourself, your hatred was leaking and your fingers couldn’t mend all the holes; you were a good person, whose was young and possibly war-torn but the labels weren’t necessary so even if you were a good person sometimes you weren’t kind; you loved, and you still do presently but you have gotten confused with longing, so any concluding feelings all felt too fanatical and eventually too weak. I was dripping in love, encased in recognition that if I were to succumb to my own heartbeat, I had experienced what it meant to be drunk and still feel the flush on my cheeks hours later. It was devotion wrapped in a needed idealization that I was simply a body and you made me feel as if I never needed one to be loved by you.

    Eventually, when thinking about religion, I thought of death to be carved from love. That, we as humans, held too much devastation and not enough hands to encase their body, they developed heaven and any type of afterlife where suffering is unknowing and peace was necessary, so their own very hearts did little ponder what it felt like still. They mourned before sickness, graceful in their decision that their love was never to be questioned, that reconciliation was possible when death was only a measure of time separating them. So, they prayed, and sung, and prepared the body as faith in their goodness was never argued and their love for them by default would never be a separator. What is love but not grief persevering, hmm?

    In my all too serious, extremely lacking fantasy I should someday harbor about my life, it seems fair to acknowledge that there is no ‘another universe.’ This is all we got, all we have been given, and I am a little lost in making it seem worthy enough. I note that we are everchanging, ruinous creatures, sticky in shame and aching before collapse, but I wish to change so I am not as ruined as I thought. (?) I fail to link a future me in some present form of desire, a possible ‘what if’ on success or stability, possible love, yet there is not even a face to be formed, she is expressionless, bound by time and most likely debt, so I do her the honor of committing and she continues to brush hands with death, and the recycling of old tasteless haircuts and burdening effort will administer the same end.

    I have loved exceptionally, greatly, magnificently to those I never received a name from, whose home is empty and whose last names are changed, and I wonder who is holding their body now, if they have been graced with warmth. I guess in most ways, if we are to assume life is our greatest tragedy, it is to be noted that love was there. That it is still there and that while it didn’t change anything nor did it save anyone, it mattered because we were alive and shared this vibrant emotion. A repetitive cycle of varying combinations of ‘If I could have loved you enough, I would have stayed” and “I envy even the earth that covers their body” until death can only mean love. Humans understand that death is a fundamental ending and still choose to love anyway, so in some twisted, pessimistic way that maybe could be positive in overcoming the fear of death, know that death could only be born from the love fostered to make the body, and the body never forgets, nor can you forgot how to love.

    We all know of the grief when our mother can’t attend our own funeral.

    I have never loved her more for going first.