Keep the Bad Shit in my Liver and the Rest Around My Heart

Nothing brings me the same joy as music and finding a new to me artist is a good day for me. I stumbled across Noah Kahan literally today. I liked his sound and he worked "metastasized" into a song lyric pretty cleanly.

 So I went listen to more. And his lyrics have that immature flavor of self-abuse, less reflection and more busted knuckles. But also this way of expressing that green flash and twisting ache of anger that you haven't learned to name.  A couple songs really got me feeling things. And that's impressive. 

So I listened well on my way home from a hard day. Mandolin and finger picking and a tenor that cracks open onto notes I can't find. All wrapped around these lyrics that I can identify with, but I bet so can a kid my kid's age.

I wanted to look up some lyrics because the one  song really stuck with me. Opened up Google and typed in his name and pressed Enter. Then I'm pretty sure my heart stopped and that same flash and twist and ache ripped through me like it hasn't in so long. I guess I forgot how much pain and anger taste the same. It was like the face of a ghost. Worse. I can reason with seeing a shadow of what was. This is living, breathing, blinding wonder and confusion that my brain was not ready for.

It wasn't just the features, the pointed chin and that nose,  though it is that. It wasn't just the way his hair flipped in that exact place, though it is that. It was in the set of his mouth and that distant penetrating gaze that always made me feel a semblance of that same twisted ache. I could see the same clench in his jaw and the same attempt to look natural in a photo, but I suspect he rarely feels natural anywhere.

Gabe sitting across the room heard me gasp what I can only think is "the sound that a woman makes, about five seconds before her heart begins to break" and it felt just like that. When my eyes saw and all the cones and rods aligned and shot that image through my optic nerve, then a pause for my mind and my heart to catch up with my eyes before I just shattered, the fragile thing I am, like I'd been dropped. 

I desperately flipped looking for another photo. One that didn't make me feel both like looking at a ghost and feeling that he must still be alive. That did not work. My eyes flicked over one of him, maybe a teenager, and it was seeing another version of the same face that I have not seen in a very long time. I finally had to stop. Nothing I saw made me feel differently, only more and there's only so much you can feel before you lose all reason with no idea when it will return.

I can't explain the way it floods back. Monsoons and hurricanes and tsunamis back. Grabs you by the throat and reaches into your chest, a vice on the lungs. And suddenly I was there in a yellow dress, there was sidewalk chalk on the living room wall and love poems written on wood paneling. An anime poster hung and backlit, the maroon sheets I bought.  Knee high boots and a dive bar and 1,001 nights that were probably closer to a couple hundred. Bruises on my thighs and a scar just under my collarbone. So much more that I can't remember and all the hurt and comfort that brings. The first fire I'd ever felt and a series of losses so whole that every one burned me clean.

I still don't remember most of the summer of that year. Months. Months when my own bed was too much to face. Weeks when I didn't eat. I probably held a little of that haunted look myself for a long while. Maybe it's still there, so much a part of me that I don't notice. Do you see it? The betrayals that came after that I'm just now realizing fifteen years later. "You can't be young and do that."

This artist is 27. I thought when I learned his age "he's a fetus." Then I realized that 27 was only three years shy of all I got.

Here, a little later, I'm okay. But in that way that you get used to being okay. The lump is still right there in my throat and if I try to speak, I'd choke on it. I think I should be in bed. I think "no one would call either any great beauty." I think I write because I have no one to tell. I think...

"I divvied up my anger into thirty separate parts.
Keep the bad shit in my liver and the rest around my heart.
I'm still angry at my parents for what their parents did to them, but it's a start."




Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 2, 2023 at 12:04 AM

    I couldn't read this one until today. I'm glad I did. I've always loved your writing. I always will.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Leanna GableNovember 14, 2023 at 6:49 AM

      Well, I have no idea who you are and that feels kind of strange. But thank you, I guess.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We Traveled Nationwide, Til We Settled Here on the East Side

Image
I am not supposed to consider my sleep as a factor in not feeling well. I keep having to remind myself of that. I'm entering my fourth week of mild,  self-controlled sleep deprivation, prescribed and overseen by a sleep psychologist. I woke up this morning feeling like I have the flu. I've had a headache for two days, I'm nauseated, I feel woozy. I slept through my alarm this morning. That has not happened in over a decade. I feel like I got good and drunk last night and have had about four drinks total in the past week. When she told me that we're doing at least another week, I didn't cry. I haven't cried yet. I do have a giant lump in my throat because all I want to do right now is crawl back in bed after a cup of coffee and my ADHD medications. Good news is that we always talk in the morning, so I'll have plenty of time to get this particular thing out of my system before bedtime. She says that's important. So much of what our appointments include is ...
Read more

Don't Forget the Key's Under the Mat

Image
It’s been the same every year on this day. I never can believe that he’s as old as he is. It’s his last real milestone to adulthood. He’s 21 today. In fifteen minutes, to be exact. The only one I have and I always knew he’d be the only one. As much as I always loved him, it wasn’t fair to even try to love someone else that much. I just don’t think I could. He’s been my favorite person since the moment he started being his own person. My baby, my buddy, my biggest fan, my confidante, my partner in crime, my adventure accomplice, my concert companion, my ride-or-die, my travel copilot, my best friend. We talk almost every day. My heart hopes it will always be that way, but my mind knows that I shouldn’t expect him to live his life for me. He’s out on his own now. People have asked me if that hurts. It’s two things. I miss him. Lord, do I miss him. I didn’t bake him a cake for the first time in his life this year. That breaks my heart more than I can find words to tell. I bought the ingre...
Read more

Don't Chase That Carrot Til it Makes You Sick

Image
I can't remember the last time I sat down to write. It's not that I'm uninspired or that I have writer's block or whatever. I have not had time to sit without my usual guilt. I sit here now with "clean out bedroom drawers" written in ink pen on my palm like a '90s phone number. I miss this. The time sitting still, a Tropicalia at my right hand, two in. James McMurtry in my ears, wondering if in a few weeks, I should buy one ticket or two. My God, I'm happy. I guess the time has come to share the news. I'll be a proper Athenian in a week and sixteen hours. I never thought in a million years that I'd own anything. It makes way more sense than I ever thought it would. I always said that with Gabe grown, I'd do this. I'd buy a condo in a city somewhere that I could walk or bike or ride a bus anywhere I wanted to be. Nowhere up North. I get cold. Nowhere out of the country, I have a criminal record, you know. And that seriously limits my opt...
Read more