Reading how to disappear: notes on invisibility and time in a time of transparency. the author starts off the first chapter - post a more diverse introduction to how invisibility shows up in different facets of our life - with our first encounters with invisibility as children. object impermanence. the idea of a parent being there... and not there. invisible friends. the voices in your head. daydreams.
they mention something - about how the existence of imaginary friends in our head is one of the first ways we begin to acknowledge the existence of other points of views, and also of self-soemthingness
i hoard objects to hold onto the things that have left my life. the coins bely civilizations gone by, the expired makeup i keep for my teenage grubby years, the, every note, picture, dried flower, hotel pencil - to me, somehow, holds so much more invisible.
i take you out for dinner and look at your newly familiar face tinged by the pink-purple artificial light. i look at your little ruffled blouse and three ear piercings tucked away behind your box-dyed blonde-brown hair (i know the exact shade, mine was the same way too, three years ago), and the way you itch at your neck, while you go through the menu and proceed to order two starters and a soup. i have seen you before, across the room, in the arms of someone else, in the cold light of day, but somehow you look slightly more real, fleshy, luminous, across the table from me right now.
i surreptitiously look at myself in my front camera and then put my phone away for the rest of the night. i look fine. i look like me. chalega.
i take you home (or we go to yours) and we undress each other. you see my body and i see yours. as i soon discover, i am scratching the surface, quite literally, of what there is to see about you.
the days go by and i continue to come by to have a look at you. it is cleaning day today, i find out. i sit on the the cold speckled marbled floor as you rip out the innards of your closet, skimpy lace and tender cotton raining down around me. i stare up at you and wonder how and when could such a funny creature simply plop down on this earth like this with no warning. i ask about an anomaly of a beige dress shirt at the edge of your bed, just to make conversation. you do not answer me.
i see you looking at me oddly across the room sometimes. you don't let on much verbally, not as much as i do. i take it you are wondering what to do about what you're seeing. i am doing the same. it's a fun little game. i decide i enjoy playing it with you.
i get comfortable sometimes. i forget to hoist myself up with the imaginary stick on my back, words come out a bit rougher, i wear the threads with holes. i am testing it out, of course, waiting for your reaction - what is the limit? how much can you take? how much do you want to take? do you like what you see?
you don't give me a whole lot to work with. you answer my questions succinctly and truthfully. i sense omission but i do not hold it against you. in return, i fill in the gaps for the both of us, i think, and you do not protest. though i can feel myself scratching away at your corners some times, no matter how much i try to neatly avoid them.
when i look at you in the pale blue light of dawn, you remind me of a little rat, scared, spiky, breaking eye contact as fast as you make it, and scurrying off into the darkness again. come dawn, and you are simply a mouse who is fast asleep.
i can see you when you are not around as well. just out of sight, in the kitchen, making chai. in the shower. out for an errand. you will be back soon, of course you will. you are (mostly) reliable like that.
except when you aren't. it's a few hours at first, then a few days. i don't wait around.
we spend one (1) beautiful night together in our respective backyards, burying and unburying various little mementos, sharing them with each other. you hold up something that took me such a long time to bury, almost like it has no weight. you hand it over to me and it feels a lot lighter in my hands too suddenly. i throw it up in the air and laugh. i am not worried about where it falls.
i don't see you for a few days.
are you coming back? i wonder.
i see you disappear with bottles sometimes
you disappear. sometimes you do not reply to me. you do not have to. i grasp at air, wondering if you'll come back, you should come back, you will come back.
you come back.
after all we are just seeing each other. you do not owe me anything.
'let's go to the beach' comes a text message one day. i oblige, with a bit of hesitation - why am i doing this?
we take a trip to the coast. it is a hazy sandy
it is beautiful
we run out to the shore
it's glowing
little strange amoebic creatures
eat
at our ankles
do you see what i see?
i ask you
just to confirm
i do i do i
do
you say
i. see what you see
we stop by at my parents house on the way back. i take you to my room. you lightly gasp. "oh, i see" you say. "why you are the way you are".
you do not elaborate.
you are in the corner of my eye all the way back home. but you seem different. you look like, when i would see you across the room, in the pale of light, in someone elses arms.
hey. what happens now? are you still seeing me? am i still seeing you? have i blended into the background of your life like your curtains and your piano? have i been sized up?
this time i am bothered. i am starting to get scared. my friends ask me, hey, what happened to that person you were seeing. are you still seeing them?
hey.
am i still seeing you? i dont know? how much is there to see? when does it end? when have i seen it all?
i really enjoy this little turn of phrase. i've been reading xxx and
see you. you are and will be seen again. i never say goodbye, even to people. a little door open. i am still thinking about you.
"let's see"