Dilate (written in mid-2005)

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This is a story I created around the song "Dilate" by Ani DiFranco. Lyrics are at the bottom.

3/9
Her life used to be life-like. It used to be all harsh reality and no fairy tale, all gravel and rain and no lapping waves. Though she lived in a village by the sea all those years she never really absorbed the atmosphere – mostly because she couldn’t.

Wouldn’t or couldn’t might, in this case, be the same. Though.

She didn’t want to become like them, but somehow she yearned for it too. Divided she had always been, as if she was not a whole as much as pieces made up to form a whole. She was a splinter here and there, yeah, you might say that. Splintered. She wanted to see what they saw through their glasses, but she didn’t want other people to see her as “one of them”. She knew that they would only ever see her if she shared their view, but the occasional scorn she felt at that particular forecast was such a rush. She had always been the girl who wanted the cookie in all its form. Perhaps this was because all she ever got was the crumbles.

So the thing was that she wanted different things.

14/10
Now it had grown to become more like showbiz. When she wanted different things, when she wanted things she never really knew she wanted and when she wanted things she knew she could never have, it made her an outsider. At least among her friends. Because their dreams weren’t fractured like hers was.

She was losing her focus. Ok, so her life had been life-like and now it was like showbiz (their’s had always been like dreams, because despite your previous knowledge dreams didn’t always have to be nice). And all because of the living thing growing inside of her.

A baby.

Inside of her.

Outside of her. Around her. Surrounding her; everything. Because it affected those standing close to her.

It made them run.

She had told him on a Tuesday. The Tuesday (she always felt discomfort putting the 'the' in front of it, but she had to) that went to show that an ordinary day like a Tuesday in the middle of an ordinary week could hurt more than any day she had ever experienced in her short life. And she was having a baby. She had found out on the Monday before the Tuesday, and then she had prided herself for her courage when she told him as soon as the next day. And then that ordinary Tuesday with a 'the' in front of it had broken her until she found it difficult to breathe.

It made them run. And it left her alone.

27/10
They used to speak of alienation, her friends. With grand words and grand gestures they spoke of dread and angst, melodrama and tears, unbelonging and untogetherness (those two last words were her own). Mostly she watched them and knew that they could never feel completely alienated if they had someone to speak all those grand words to, and they actually listened.

They had gone to a party once, one of the more prestigious college parties. She remembers spilling wine and wiping it up with her dress and getting a ‘humph’ look from someone she didn’t know. And then she had seen her speaking to one of her professors, and she fit right in.

They had gone to the beach once, the salty one that had boats and piers. She remembers laughing really loudly at something and then the tense silence that follows a girl laughing really loudly. And then she had seen him admiring a boat and another guy doing the same a couple of yards to his left, and he fit right in.

They had seen him grow into his role as time progressed, and because he didn’t want to go back there he always fit right in from then on.

They had seen movies all the time, and he always fit right in.

And she remembers that she had wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, though the napkin had been placed beside her.

28/10
The only time she fit right in was when someone fitted in her. And that was too fucking sad to even think about.

12/12
When her friend was loved she was loved in whole, where she was loved in pieces. She was loved because people wanted to have someone they could love comfortably. When her friend was loved their love was shaped into a solid thing shooting straight on, and that was intense, and so she became the love of their lives. And it’s hard having a love of your life.

Her own love darted around with the pieces. She had always taken people the way they were packaged when she opened them, because the pieces of her couldn’t create a new image that suited them better. Until he came along and she tried.

She tried to see him in ideal, like a photograph; like she had seen her friends do all the time. It became a running joke between the two of them, the way she tried to see only his good sides and the way he failed. People always failed at living up to imaginary images of themselves, but they really sucked at even trying. And in the end the joke wasn’t even funny.

16/12
Now when there is a baby inside of her she no longer lives in that harsh reality, because it can’t be real that she will become a mother. It can’t be real that she will have to change diapers and know close-up how it feels to love someone more than anything else in the entire world.

She doesn’t believe in anything coming automatically, and so she’s afraid she won’t know which button to push to feel that love.

She’s really, really afraid of everything right now. She needs to find a room to stay in for a long time and so far she’s only stayed in a room long enough to locate the door.

22/12
The worst thing was probably that it was the pieces of her that made her love him. Because she was in splinters, "I'm in love with you" always sounded wrong. It came out wrong. She didn’t know what it was you were supposed to feel when you were in love, and so it had taken her a while to figure it out, but now she thought she knew.

She thought she knew that laying in the dark beside his sleeping form and feeling dirty all over again could be love. She thought she knew that another random hotel room could be love. She thought she knew that a stain on her dress and salt on her fingers could be love if he was in the same room. She thought she knew that riding the subway home in the middle of night because he had to work could be love. She thought she knew that magazines on the floor could be love. She thought she knew that even though their pleasant times never stuck on her mind there could be love. She thought she knew that feeling like an ordinary Tuesday had just painted the walls with your heart could be love. She knew that the gravel and the rain were her love, and never the lapping waves. Maybe bad times could be love. Maybe reality could be love.

But she was angry because she knew that reality could be nicer, and all she ever got was the dirty parts.

1/1
The clock in the shadowy corner showed 2:43; bright red neon numbers matching the bright blue neon sign she was sure the motel had hanging from a pole by the road. One letter quiet, gone off – one of the few clichés that really did exist outside of fiction and media exactly as it was. She didn’t know why she had had the sudden urge to get a room, because she had never been here an entire night by herself. But then she remembered that she wasn’t alone, and that everything she did now probably was affected by her.

Her legs were still thin where they lay outstretched on the comforter, dressed in just a pair of white panties and her black tank top. Her stomach had the perfect roundness to it. She had laughed for a really long time when she realized that she would get to be one of those that looked really good pregnant.

Now she was staring at the ceiling.

She knew that her life would return to life-like once the baby came, only that perhaps the gravel and the rain wouldn’t come at the same time. With someone else to share her life with the bad parts would become separated and easier to deal with. She even hoped that they sometime would cease to exist for a second.

She yawned and put her hands above her head, closing her fists around the headboard like she had so many times before. She longed so much for the baby to come. She actually yearned. This empty feeling that resembled loneliness was starting to tire her, eating at her bones and gnawing at her resolve. One hand drifted down to her midriff, hovering in the air, playing with her navel. Then she decided on a name for her baby and said it out loud.

She put on her headphones and listened to “A place called home”, punching Play perhaps a little too hard. She refused to cry. Her baby would come soon.

She would not grow up influenced by the fact that her mother cried the first time she said her name out loud.

life used to be life-like
now it's more like showbiz
i wake up in the night
and i don't know where the bathroom is
and i don't know what town i'm in
or what sky i am under
and i wake up in the darkness and i
don't have the will anymore to wonder
everyone has a skeleton
and a closet to keep it in
and you're mine
every song has a you
a you that the singer sings to
and you're it this time
baby, you're it this time

when i need to wipe my face
i use the back of my hand
and i like to take up space
just because i can
and i use my dress
to wipe up my drink
i care less and less
what people think
and you are so lame
you always disappoint me
it's kind of like our running joke
but it's really not funny
and i just want you to live up to
the image of you i create
i see you and i'm so unsatisfied
i see you and i dilate

so i'll walk the plank
and i'll jump with a smile
if i'm gonna go down
i'm gonna do it with style
and you won't see me surrender
you won't hear me confess
'cuz you've left me with nothing
but i've worked with less
and i learn every room long enough
to make it to the door
and then i hear it click shut behind me
and every key works differently
i forget every time
and forgetting defines me
that's what defines me

when i say you sucked my brain out
the english translation
is i am in love with you
and it is no fun
but i don't use words like love
'cuz words like that don't matter
but don't look so offended
you know, you should be flattered
and i wake up in the night
in some big hotel bed
and my hands grope for the light
and my hands grope for my head
the world is my oyster
the road is my home
and i know that i'm better
i’m better off alone