Velvet Touched Memoir, or On How A Door Cannot Close Once It Is Opened
Note from Half-Eaten Mouth:
It is a celebration, I think. It traces my history from when I was little and terrified of one painting, all the way to Jude. And I think the humour of it… the morbid humour of it – is that I am left with none of them anymore. Whoever said it was right. It is terrible to be the one who remembers. And the sad part is that if I walk around town, I have more chances to see that damn painting hanging on a church’s door, than see Jude anywhere else.
3 years old: Mom tells me I'm gonna catch a cold if I keep laying on the floor. I don’t understand it for Hell is underneath and it is burning. I bite my tongue and refrain from asking.
5 years old: I am in my grandma’s kitchen and there is a painting of the Great Judgement hanging on her walls of cracked stone. “It keeps the house from falling apart” she says, and I swallow my soup, terrified. I watch it closely and imagine how flames will swallow me if I don’t go to church this Sunday. The beasts eat the sinners and take them to their land. I haven't slept in 4 days.
7 years old: There are scary shadows on the walls. My brother tells me demons can possess humans. I eat my grapes and let the feeling of impending doom settle in. Isn’t this supposed to make me feel safe?
10 years old: I hope I find all the love in the world. And I shall give all this love to You, and You shall give me what I want, what I need. I still don’t know why mom keeps talking to me about the world ending. She seems content. I am not. I want to live. I haven’t lived yet. My brother is all grown up now and I have no one to play with anymore. I raise my sister and pretend this isn’t loneliness. But she is one year old and I love making her laugh.
12 years old: I got stung by a bee for the first time when my sister fell down the stairs of our big old house. Mom slapped me and the sting on my cheek said "I am not a good mother". I think of everything I will do when I am 21, and loved and running. I think of my brother being belittled at school and how I bear the guilt of his sadness. I put crayons in my hair and make my grandma 47 "I love you" notes. She puts them under teacups and feeds me cheese and bread.
13 years old: I think You forget to see me. Mom tells me about the Second Coming and I begin to think the Antichrist is crawling up my back. She says the world ending is near and maybe I will have time to fall in love and maybe I will paint my own house in green and blue and yellow but I will probably be crawling up trees where horns and dagger teeth cannot reach me. Until then, I pray for time and find comfort in knives which they say are only for cooking.
15 years old: Tomorrow is Easter and before the holy day of revival I think of suicide and white picket fences. I watch the film with Robert Powell and Olivia Hussey and through lashes of dull blue eyes I decide death awaits me at the end of every corner of inhospitable future. I tie rope around my wrists and think of hospital beds and needles and sounds of emptiness emersed from silent breaths. I only know how to take care of the sick when the sickness isn't me. I dream of empty waiting rooms. Both on earth and on the other side. Chambers where no one is waiting for me, where I am not leaving nor left. I see the guilt of Judas and the tremblement mouths of repenting sinners. However, I choose the tree, the rope, the song one sings when they're making their deathbed.
The ages between 16 and 18 are forever forgotten. (He says I am angry all the time. Maybe it's because my grandma died and I am, in fact, angry. Frankly, I do not remember him.)
19 years old: I think I love him for he breaks my body like the bread and drinks my drooling mouth like the blood and I've never felt as close to God as I do now. This is religion, and the world ending is not near, mother, and I don't even remember that painting of the Great Judgment for he is the only one who is judging my movements — of the body, none of the soul. For he only cares for the bread, and I have to feed him.
20 years old: The first time I felt the complete absence of any notion of salvation I was (left) alone and didn't call my mother to tell her I had been living my greatest fears for the past 4 months. I go to the church next to my house to ask for something — anything at all. In my meticulous attempt to leave, fueled by sparks of disappointment and the well outlined thought that maybe, just maybe, I should've turned right to get a coffee and not come here, I see the painting of the Great Judgment hanging by the door, the same one I had been praying away in my childhood. It's always been one yard away from me, like the plague, watching me. I have moved homes for nothing. Everything is exactly like the hole I crawled out from. Because I never left. I am nailed to that cross. I wonder if Jude sees me.
21 years old: When I am 21, loved and running — I am always running. I freed my neck from their grips and Jude is calling me. Today at 6 pm — I only come by to feed his stare. Lights flicker and his eyes are not as heavy as his breath. The weight of feathers, fifty thousand pounds of dynamite under my door and sticky clementines ju(de)ice — and spit, and milk. My tongue is swollen with guilt and I hope you can bite on it and let it drain. If you plan on taking the nails out of my hands, carrying me out of my tomb, make a bed out of my cross first, and let me sleep. I believe it is safe to settle here. I swear I am only impatient because I’ve been waiting for too long. I only suffer from gluttony because you feel too close. I love the same way, you should know. You befriended the sore fever but so did I, and I now remember — we met in the waiting room.
22 years old: This is the Gentle Judgement of everything that could possibly go wrong, it is the beast which swallows me back to the empty quiet and wraps stems around the nails in my back. I still let you pick out my words for when I can’t speak. I still caress your forehead when you’re sleeping and I choke on my own skin in silence. I only let the time pass and wonder if God left me some other kind of love here.
