Wake, Siren Read online

—Part of me is nervous that if I say some of this out loud that’s what will happen.

  —Are there other times you can think of that when you said something out loud your grip loosened? You were flung into chaos?

  —No.

  —Mmmm.

  —I’m not sure.

  —Okay. You don’t have to be sure. We can come back to that. I hear you talking about reality and what’s real. What does that mean for you?

  —Reality. This understandable world. Here I am, this is my arm, these are the boundaries of my body. I am a human being named Myrrha. I am not a toaster. You are not a rosemary bush. There’s breakfast and gravity and the order of words makes sense and certain people you hate and certain people you love and there are dads and skies and beds and your skin holds your organs in.

  —This is all real.

  —This is all real.

  —What’s nonreal, besides darkness and chaos? What would it mean to find yourself there?

  * * *

  —Mmmmm.

  —I’m thinking.

  —Mmm.

  —The understandable things become non-understandable there. You get snagged from the fabric of normal life. So I might not be sure about plants, and maybe I wonder if they can talk after all. And maybe it’s a question mark as to whether if you hold your hand over a candle for four minutes, what would happen. And maybe your brother is your son, or your sister is your mom. And maybe the things you’re supposed to think and feel you end up thinking and feeling the opposite, for example maybe you want to lovemake with a tulip tree.

  —Make love?

  —Be intimate. Grind against, maybe naked.

  —Yes. Go on.

  —The rules are different.

  —The rules.

  —Grammar. The order of words. Those things dissolve. Who you’re supposed to kiss with your tongue. Calling your parents by their first names instead of Ma Mama Mom Pa Papa Dad Father Daddy. Not squatting on the steps of the YMCA on Putnam Ave. and taking a wet dump. Not walking up to some woman in a fur coat on the street and nuzzling against her and asking, Can you be my mom please.

  —Is that something you’ve wanted to do?

  —I have nuzzled up against a woman in a fur coat. It looked so soft. I was probably five. I can still remember how soft it was. I didn’t ask her to be my mom.

  —Can you tell me a little bit about your family?

  —My dad’s father was a sculptor. His hands were always dry and he smelled sour, like yogurt, rancid yogurt. My main memory of him was him telling me—I was probably six years old—him putting me on his lap and saying, “I hope you don’t grow up to be one of those disgusting women.”

  —Do you know what he meant by that?

  —Well, I got the sense that he didn’t really like women that much, right? My dad’s mom was a statue.

  —She was cold? Your grandmother?

  —She was funny. I think she hated my grandfather. She called him Pyggy.

  —Piggy.

  —My dad didn’t talk much about what it was like growing up with them. Asking about it was against the rules.

  —Were there a lot of rules?

  —I didn’t know at that point that nuzzling up against a soft fur coat was against the rules. I learned it. Some things you know go against the rules without being told.

  —What sort of rules are those?

  —Probably you know.

  —I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

  —Like it doesn’t have to be said out loud that you are not a toaster. And it doesn’t need to be said out loud that trees are not for lovemaking.

  —I hear you mentioning plants a few times.

  —So what.

  —Have you ever wanted to be intimate with a plant?

  —No.

  —Mmmm.

  —Of course not.

  —Okay.

  —Things like that can make you feel like something’s wrong with you.

  —Things like what?

  —I had some dreams. It started with some dreams.

  —Yes. Can you tell me about these dreams?

  —You’re going to feel weird.

  —I really applaud your willingness to be vulnerable with me.

  —When I was younger, maybe thirteen, fourteen, I started having these dreams.

  —Mmm.

  —And in terms of what we were just saying about plants, and being intimate with them, it was more, these dreams, or one dream really, again and again, it wasn’t a plant.

  —Mmmm.

  —We were on the beach, in the dream, and we went swimming together and he was holding me and I had my legs wrapped around him the way you do in the ocean.

  —He.

  —My father.

  —Your father in the dream.

  —Yes, and in the dream he’s holding on to my bottom and I like the way it feels, but at the same time I don’t like that I like the way it feels.

  —Mmm.

  —I start kissing his neck. I hate saying this.

  —I’m right here with you and we can take a break whenever feels right. Can you go on?

  —I start kissing his neck. This is my dad. It’s his shoulders and his hairy chest and scratchy, bearded face. I’m kissing him. Not in a daughtery way. Okay? Not in a way that daughters are supposed to kiss their dads. That’s a rule you don’t have to learn, it should just be in you from the start. You don’t kiss your father slowly. And in the dream it feels good and bad at the same time. Does that make sense?

  —It does. These sorts of dreams are very common.

  —What?

  —Yes.

  —Other people have these dreams?

  —It’s our mind’s way of working out some of our desires. Working out things we might want, or feel mixed up about, but that our brain won’t let us acknowledge consciously. So it comes up in dreams. And they can be really troubling. But it doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you.

  —And then I start kissing his mouth.

  —Mmmm.

  —And he kisses me. And holds my bottom tighter. And I don’t like it. It feels all wrong. It’s horrible. Horrible.

  —Mmm. Yes.

  —And I look out into the ocean and the waves are getting much bigger and the sense is, you know when you sort of know in dreams what’s going to happen? The sense is that these waves are coming for us.

  —As punishment.

  —As punishment? No. The sense wasn’t punishment. Just these high gray waves moving toward us.

  —How does the dream end?

  —He’s holding me tighter and the waves are coming and coming and they’re white now, stronger, faster, and I wake myself up yelling before the biggest wave washes over me.

  —You cry out.

  —Horrible. What is my brain doing to me putting these sick dreams in my head? And I was afraid people knew. That they could see into my brain and knew that I was so sick.

  —You felt ashamed.

  —But see—god—have you ever had it where you dream something and then it alters the way you see someone the next day? I had a dream I got into this huge fight with my friend Cassandra, and the next day I felt mad at her. I felt really mad. I couldn’t look at her. The dream jostled reality. I was mad. From the dream. Not from real life. Does that ever happen to you?

  —I understand the experience you’re describing.

  —I had this dream and I hated the way it felt. But also, too—I hate saying this, this is really—I saw my dad the next day and I was trying to be normal and praying he couldn’t see into my brain, and I could remember what it felt like to have my legs around him and what his chest hair felt like in my hands. And it was sick, a thing you really do not want to feel. And at the same time it shifted the way I saw him. If that makes sense.

  —It does.

  —It shifted it.

  —How did it shift it?

  —Have you ever dreamed of someone, I don’t know what sort of person you might have crushes on, but h
as there ever been a person in a dream who all of a sudden you have a crush on who you’ve never had a crush on in normal life and then you see them in awake life and something’s different, as if the dream delivered a crush to you? Do you know about this? Has this happened to you?

  —I understand the experience you’re describing.

  —I hate saying this.

  —Mmm.

  —That’s what it did with my dad. It altered the way—I mean, I didn’t want to think about kissing my dad like that. But also—

  —Mmmm.

  —I started to like to.

  —I see.

  —Think about it.

  —I see.

  —Or maybe not that I liked to but that I couldn’t stop.

  —Thinking about kissing him.

  —Yes.

  —When you let yourself think about this, how did it feel?

  * * *

  —Mmmm.

  —I’m thinking.

  —Take your time.

  —Like hunger.

  —I see.

  —But there are two kinds of hunger. There’s the hunger where there’s a void that can be filled, and that feels good. Sometimes I come home from school and I’m starving and it’s so nice knowing I can eat an apple and some parmesan and some olives. And that hunger’s really nice because you know it’s going to stop.

  —Is the other hunger less nice?

  —It’s the same hunger except instead of being hungry for an apple and some cheese you want to eat your mattress or your belt.

  —Something felt—

  —Unnatural.

  —Against nature.

  —But in nature, with animals, it happens.

  —What happens?

  —A stallion mounts his foal. Goats. Certain birds. I was jealous.

  —Of the animals.

  —Of law forbidding what nature allows.

  —Law.

  —Human law. Human rules. I understand it. I understand about civilization and order and how we have to separate ourselves from animals. I couldn’t stop thinking how if I were a stranger I could be with him the way I wanted to, but because we shared blood, I couldn’t. I would try and try and try to steer my thoughts away from it, and try to convince myself that I didn’t feel what I felt.

  —How did that work?

  —It never worked. I wanted him to feel the same thing I did.

  —Do you think he did?

  —In the evenings, after dinner, I’d sit with him on the couch. And I was still young enough, fifteen, sixteen at this point, that we could cuddle up and there could still be an innocence to it. Except it wasn’t innocent for me. I stopped—

  —It’s all right.

  —I would take off my panties. At dinner I would slip them off. And then when we were on the couch together I hoped—

  —Mmmm.

  —I hoped that he would smell me.

  —I see.

  —And that if he did, something would shift in him. And I always prayed his hand around my back would drop lower, and if his elbow brushed my breast I’d think about it for days.

  —Mmmm.

  —I couldn’t handle it.

  —What couldn’t you handle?

  —Wanting something so much that I shouldn’t want. Being too weak to stop myself from it. That’s when I—

  —What happened then?

  —I couldn’t handle it, and I didn’t think I deserved to be alive.

  —Did you try to harm yourself?

  * * *

  —It’s okay. Take your time.

  —I wanted to die.

  —Can you tell me what happened?

  —I tried to hang myself.

  —But it didn’t work.

  —But I was too slow, and my nurse heard the rustling and I guess I was sort of crying and talking out loud and she came in and wrapped her arms around me and said, “No no no no you won’t not tonight you won’t.”

  —Were you glad to see her? Were you relieved?

  —No. No. I wanted to die. I wanted to be done.

  —Mmmm.

  —She kept asking, “What’s wrong, what’s wrong, what’s going on, why would you want to do this, you’re young and beautiful and you have parents that love you and you have this good life.” And I just cried and cried and couldn’t say anything. It was too horrible. All I could say was I don’t deserve to be alive. I kept repeating that. She held me and rocked me in her arms and she promised that whatever was wrong we could figure it out, that no matter how horrible it felt right now, it wouldn’t always feel this way. And she promised not to tell anyone, and she promised to help me in whatever way she could.

  —Did you trust her?

  —I trusted her.

  —Did you tell her?

  —She said, “Maybe you’re in love?” And I said, It’s my crime.

  —Your crime.

  —And she said, “I promise I’ll help you. Whatever it is. I promise I won’t tell your father.” And my whole body tensed. And then she knew. I spoke to her through my body. And she knew. And her body went tense against mine. And she finally said, “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”

  —What was it for you to know that someone else knew?

  —It was a relief. Like oh finally maybe someone else can carry a little bit of this. And when she said it’s okay, it’s okay, I just wanted to believe her. But also, it made everything feel realer and so much worse. Before it had just been me and this horrible wrong part of me, inside my own private place of my skull, but now it was released, it was spoken.

  —What does that horrible wrong part of you look like?

  —I said it was released. It was spoken. Do you not think there is something disgusting going on here?

  —What makes you ask that?

  —You understand what I’m telling you, right?

  —I understand.

  —And so you just sit there and you don’t react?

  —Tell me about what that wrong part of you looks like.

  —I’m thinking.

  —Sometimes it’s helpful to close your eyes. Try closing your eyes. Yes.

  —A crater. Or more, a volcano. A dark rising that is hardened all over, dark, and if you fell down it, it would rip your skin. And at the top is this gaping crater, this opening. And there are creatures around.

  —Creatures.

  —Shadows. They’re shadows. They’ve got big eyes and long claws and lots of small sharp teeth, and I can’t see what color they are because they’re shadows. And they move around, they slither around. Mostly they hide.

  —What happens when you see them? What happens when they come out of hiding?

  —I don’t want to see them. I don’t want to be near them.

  —If you were to talk with them, what would you say?

  —To these creatures?

  —To these creatures.

  —This feels weird.

  —Try to imagine them sitting beside you. You can keep your eyes closed. They’re sitting beside you. What do you want to say to them?

  —I’m not bad. I’m not. You guys are there. You live inside me. But you don’t own all of it. I’m not bad. I’m not bad. I took off my panties because something is mixed up. You can live in me. I can take care of you. You can come be on my lap. You don’t have to hide. You don’t have to be afraid of me. You don’t have to be afraid. I’m not bad. I’m not. I’m not. I am not. Just come out. Let me see you. They’re taking me to the opening.

  —Mmmm.

  —I’m walking up this steep hill and the surface is porous and so rough. And they’re leading me to the top, they’re this small army of shadows, maybe ten or eleven of them, slithering up the side of this crater space. Volcano.

  —What do you see?

  —At the rim. We’re at the rim. It’s red around the lip. A deep pink red. The creatures are circling it and they’re lit up by the light coming from inside. Red glow. They’re dancing around the rim, the shadows.

  —Are you danc
ing?

  —I’m too scared to dance. But I want to look in. I want to look into the opening.

  —Can you look into the opening?

  —I look in. I look in. I lean over and I look in.

  * * *

  —There is no bottom. There is only more dark. And there are thousands and thousands and thousands of the creatures lining the walls, slithering.

  —Mmmm.

  —I want to go in. It feels irresistible. Like there’s something down there I should know. Something true. All the creatures are slithering all the way down. It’s uninhabitable. And I know. I know from looking. I know from looking in that if you go down you do not come back, or you do not come back the same. I don’t want to be there anymore.

  —All right. Open your eyes. Here we are. How are you?

  —Tired.

  —Mmm.

  —That felt strange. Did my voice sound different?

  —How do you mean?

  —Did it sound different?

  —Did it sound different to you?

  —I couldn’t tell. I was talking.

  —Does your voice sound different now?

  —It sounds like the voice I know.

  —You were talking about saying this out loud, about your feelings for your father, and that it was a relief and also frightening.

  —She promised she would help.

  —Did she help?

  —I guess in some ways.

  —How did she help?

  —She arranged it.

  —Mmmm.

  —It was during a festival week when the women are away. My mother was gone. I knew my dad had mistresses sometimes. That was part of their situation.

  —Did you meet these mistresses?

  —Sometimes.

  —Were you jealous of them?

  —In some ways. In some ways I wanted to be them. I wanted my dad to look at me the way he did at them.

  —How was that?

  —More light. Different light.

  —Mmmm.

  —But also I wasn’t jealous. I’d see them and think, You have him one way, but his blood is in my body and my blood is in his body. We share blood and you’ll never get as close to him as that.

  —And that was a comfort.

  —Sort of.

  —What did your nurse help arrange?

  —You sort of look like him. I’m just noticing. Something in your eyebrows. And your beard.