when something is missing, but you dont know that its missing.

on a subconscious level, you hafta know. there hasta be suggestions of it. the pattern saying that it is not there just has not emerged. like when you leave for a trip and one thing is always forgotten. there should always be one thing missing?

when something is absent, its absence becomes an entity. more than a nothing, for if it were nothing it wouldnt be absent. it was definitely there, and its gone, or it definitely should be there. like someones hand, or the absence left by cutting someones hair. its very obvious, that absence, because there was always something there before to obscure what was behind it, and now that thing is showing through.

i want to know what it is called when there is a suggestion of absence. you've never been here, but it shouldnt be like this, it should be this. false hopes, expectations maybe. you expect it, an expected object. i think thats too close to absence, but along the right path. a pointing finger leads to an object, a shadow suggests a light source. what are those things that pull on the strings of memory. how can i catch the essence of a moving hand, or a smell that goes with a scene, like an apple orchard in the fall.

there are colors enough, thats certain. and the open space is there to have that thing that is beyond suggestion and absence. what are the lines that make your eyes move along familiar paths. how do we look at water? do we gaze at it, do we watch it. our minds are elsewhere, maybe being called to sea. an up and down motion to follow the waves. more circular and triangular. the hand drawings suggest thats true. whats the way we remember the dust that built up on those speakers. the touch of hands and laughter and squeals. that was circular enough yes.

i can tell you a memory, but id rather just let you remember it. let you feel those feelings i felt, so you can understand me as a person more, so i will be a little less alone.

the broader i cast the net, the weaker the catch.

a figure above me, its frustrated and angry.
the warmth of those bodies on either side of the bench. i remember light blue and pigeons.
a laugh and a skip down the brightly lit hall while i lie in darkness not understanding anything at all. shes my sister i think, and thats her friend, but did i interpret that later.
another time in the dark with a bloody nose, and no knowledge at all of what is real and not. they are fighting, i think im choking on my own blood.
a bloody nose that wont stop for hours, sitting in a mildewy attic, scared. this is too much.

i found a glazed, grey rhinoceros beetle in the parking lot of the local community college the morning after my mother had a mental breakdown and told me and my sister our father was coming to get us with an ax. to me that beetle was something good, a sign that things could become normal again. my memories of the night before are all very hazy, i remember being woken up, a flight to our neighbors house, where they had a painting of a small child/demon on the wall. definitely a very frightening thing to see on a night when my mother is babbling incoherently about danger and hell. i had a bloody nose, probably from the stress, and i remember it bleeding for hours. it couldnt have really been that long, but it seemed like it would never dry up, despite all the tricks i tried.

its silly for me to act like people dont know enough about shitty things in my life and they dont care. i just dont say everything. hahah. i just realized i never talked about that to anyone. to me it was not that important of a night. my mother had been crazy for a while, promising kittens and puppies all summer, trying too hard to make to teenage kids happy about being in a terrible place where they were all outcasts. i remember finding that beetle so much more clearly than any of the things before it, i always wanted a bunch of insects to have as a collection, and now i had my second fancy glazed beetle. i was even sad years later when it fell all to pieces, despite the fact that it could only conjure up bad memories.