Fear is pain
arising from the anticipation of evil.
- Aristotle
Garter
Staring at the full moon tonight I realize how I must
have been so dazzled. All of that gentleness
you would come to loathe, blinding me to signs that were emerging even that autumn
day. The repeated departures outside. The conversations I overheard. The usual necessary displays of prowess. The
repeated apologies to me, but with no change in direction so the words rang hollow. And the already building disapproval inside
you at thinking I was somehow lost or alone.
Or that I was committing that worst of crimes in your presence, the
crime of simply being quiet. But in
fact, I had talked to many people during your ever-increasing absences since my
arrival. You only saw what you wanted to.
Never to understand the real reasons why I simply wanted to be close at
your side, and have you close at mine, on a day which is about togetherness and
commitment. Viewed as possession, it could
make no sense to you. My behaviours now
in red pen in the notes you were taking.
Impediments to the doors you needed to keep open. Perhaps it was here that was started the slow
polishing of the lens that would come to view my every physical and social
action and attraction. A magnifying
glass in a childhood game of power where weak and vulnerable ants are bullied
and burned on the sidewalk.
I was oblivious.
You see, I was simply too focused on catching the garter. It was so like me, to think it was actually so
important to you. The symbolism. Snapped it out of the air like the ninth
inning closer. Wanted to show you, prove
to you. Competed for you, for even just the
first symbol of a future together. Thought
– if only just this once - that I’d actually won on a proving ground of common
value. Thought – if only just this once
– that I’d made rules you would have to move within.
But despite the later claims and arguments, there were no
feats of strength that would have saved me.
No way of being that could have altered your emerging path. My destiny in your life was already made by
your own nature. Just like that of the bride
we were there to support, who at the time was too dazzled by glittering things not
to see that she wasn’t even really married.
Her union with the groom an illegal fiction already dissolving before
everyone’s eyes. The ignorance of people
who try to hold shapes of melting wax or sand.
In the music the groom slowly removes his bride’s
garter. He shoots it clearly through the
air now, arcing sharply into my hand. I
hold it tightly. I have never been so certain.
The crowd roars its approval at the unknown and quiet man in the back
row. My face hot with pride, turning to
you, but your attention is elsewhere so that I have to seek you. Look.
I have caught their garter.
But victory was never mine. I hold in my hand only the falseness of them,
and the falseness of you.
- March
13, 2006
© J. Popowich
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