metaphor tender square “without metaphor, culture is meaningless, dreams are meaningless, symptoms are meaningless (except in terms of curing them), religion is meaningless. life is one-dimensional, flat, and boring. drugs, sports, sex may restore metaphor for a few hours before the meaninglessness of life settles in again. life without metaphor is intolerable.” - marion woodman, dancing in the flames, p. 186 210901 ... tender_square the photographer had the couple stand apart in the faded landscape of a cloudy sunday morning. the woman was wearing a tawny sweater with dark jeans, knee-length booths. her long, blonde hair was down and tamed. the man was wearing a spruce pullover with sky threads and jeans. his high hairline was buzz cut, a little bit like bobby hill. the couple didn’t look at each other; the photographer had instructed them to stare off in opposing directions, their bodies untouching, their backs towards one another. “that’s perfect,” she said as she snapped the shutter. 211031 ... tender_square often, i’ll leave bed in the middle of the night to type out dreams on my cell phone because i don’t want to inundate our room in artificial light. i won’t remember if i wait until morning. i pull on socks, zip a hoodie over my nightie, and carefully step across the hardwood, out the door and into the bathroom. i sit on the lid of the toilet and my fingers fly as quickly as they can, crashing into all kinds of errors, before the images turn to smoke. he’ll be sound asleep when i leave and without fail, five minutes into me being gone, he awakens, stumbles down the hall looking for me in the dark. i hear his footsteps and call assuringly that i’m only writing a dream, i’ll be back soon. he only wanders this way when he sees the space beside him empty and the bedroom door ajar, because i close the door when i’m awake for the morning and starting my routines, it’s the symbol that distinguishes being “there” from “not there.” last night, as the heat register blew an insistent wind against my bare legs in the bathroom, i heard him trudge back to bed, the frame creaking with his soft weight, and i wondered how often he would wake like this, stumbling in the middle of the night searching for me, after i no longer slept beside him. 211208 ... nr last night i had a dream that i had a crush on someone who was in jail 211227 ... tender_square “would you want to go for another walk after dinner?” he asked. “just for twenty minutes?” “no.” she was adamant. firm. “i mean, isn’t that why we walked this morning, so that we wouldn’t have to walk again later?” he didn’t know she took a half-hour stroll by herself before they did three miles at the arboretum. “okay.” he was deflated. she felt her guilt fill the space where his hope had lived. “it’s just that i’m tired,” she explained. “if you really want to go though, you can go ahead on your own,” she suggested. “no, that’s okay.” 220710 ... tender_square he changed out of his wet bathing suit in her mother’s office, emerging clothed but empty-handed. “i didn’t know what to do with the stuff,” he said, motioning behind him. she entered the room to grab her clothing. his wet towel and swim trunks were balled up on the carpet. “you can bring them down to the laundry room and hang them up,” she said. “and there will be a place for me to put them?” “yes, there’s stuff there.” he didn’t know because she always carried his stuff down for him when they visited her parent’s place. she peeled wet bathing suit from her clammy skin and pulled her clothes back on. she trudged to the basement with her bikini and towel. his trunks were clipped to an overhead mobile of claws; a single plastic clasp to carry the weight of water. she sighed and raised the other side of the sagging shorts to a second clip before hanging her two-piece. his towel was clumped atop the dryer. she took his and hers and threw them over a blue plastic line that traversed the ceiling for this reason. had he always been this lazy? 220910 ... tender_square “i don’t see a way out of whatever i’m in right now. everything is so tangled. you know when a bunch of necklaces get ensnared and you’re trying to separate them all but it seems like every move just makes the mess more pronounced? that’s what i feel like right now.” 221122 ... tender_square "when we were little and my sister and i had to share a room, i would run a piece of tape along the floor and push all her stuff to her side. she was a slob and her stuff spilled out everywhere." i relayed this anecdote to my new therapist after sharing that my sister and i weren't speaking, because her life was a mess and i mine was full with my own issues. 230117 ... tender_square the tenant clogged the toilet with shit. a pipe doctor was called to run a huge drill through the sewage line and flush the blockage. the tenant insisted on paying for the bill several times, even though it's my responsibility as the landlord to shell out for these things. later, the tenant knocked on my door and gave me a $30 bouquet of flowers i didn't ask. i answered with a mouth full of dinner saying it was all unnecessary. 230406 ... tender_square my mother and i were looking forward to lighting it up on the dance floor at a local sports bar tomorrow night. this morning, smoke was billowing from their building. there was an electrical fire. no one was hurt. 230428 what's it to you? 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