Kamby Bolongo Mean River named one of 25 Important Books of the 2000s by HTML Giant

KBMR was named one of 25 Important Books of the decade by HTML Giant. And was a Page One selection of New & Noteworthy Books by Poets & Writers Magazine.

Monday, March 5, 2012

No news today - Guest Post - Ethel Rohan

Occupy Me

More news about Occupy Wall Street, Occupy San Francisco, Occupy Oakland, but no news today about Occupy Me. It’s bad, this butchered heart business. This he left me, but he stayed. He’s gone, but he fills me, marching and sign-waving.

I broke so many things in our apartment, mugs, plates, and framed photographs, reducing us to one. I swear pieces of the white turkey platter bought for our first Christmas together shattered into the letters of his name. I smashed those platter letters into smithereens and their dust recalled the fine white coat on his hair, lashes, and skin after sanding down walls all day long. He’d laugh, if he didn’t hate me, but I miss his paint-splattered overalls and the multi-colored granules they’d leave on the bedroom floor and on my bare feet like cupcake sprinkles. I miss his painter’s hands and what they could do to houses and to me. There’s something about a man who makes a living out of his hands, you know?

Our last conversation, Dad said I needed to be strong, said he’d never heard a girl cry so long or so hard, his voice disgusted-like and a little afraid. Dad doesn’t make his living out of his hands. He asked if I knew that this year Brazil had elected their first-ever female president. Dad lived in Madison and I in Berkeley, so why was he talking about some far away place and person? He repeated I needed to be strong.

“You wouldn’t do anything, would you?” he asked.
“Like what?” I said, knowing his last statement was as close as he’d go to anything hard to say.
Dad has stopped taking my calls, also in on the Occupy Me protests.

The other evening, my best friend, Sandy, brought over dinner—tri-tip and a salad with honey mustard dressing. My ex would have hated the dressing. Sandy and I drank a bottle of wine each, dark red that tasted like crushed blackcurrants. She told me about her new boyfriend, said he did things with his tongue—widest tongue she’d ever felt—that I wouldn’t believe. Said she could ask if maybe he had a friend.

“Well I hope he has at least one friend,” I said.

Sandy didn’t laugh. If my ex were there, he’d have laughed.

The truth is, Sandy and I drank two bottles of wine each. My second bottle tasted of licorice and chocolate and Band-Aid. Sandy said she wasn’t surprised he and I broke up. Said we were finished for a long time. That everyone could see. Said he’d always loved me more than I’d loved him, as if everything was my fault.

I told Sandy to get out. She left, but has haunted me ever since too, another sit-in at Occupy Me.

I keep going back to our last conversation together as a couple. I remember how wrong outside looked through the living room window. The enormous gray clouds appeared to be a mountain range growing out of the dark evergreen trees on the hill.
He’d let his hair grow and kept blowing his blond bangs out of his eyes. It wasn’t just his hair though, he was huffing and puffing, more furious than I’d ever seen him. Drown-in-me eyes like the Big Bad Wolf too.

“What’s the point to us then?” he repeated. “You don’t want to marry me, don’t want to have my children. So what? It’s been three years.”
“I want to just stay in the now. Now is okay, right?”
“Sorry, I need more than now and okay.”
“Now could be great if you’d only be content with what we have.”
“I don’t think we have a future together.”
“Who can say they have a future together? Who can know?”
He slapped his chest. “I’d die for you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and it was the first time my heart had ever talked.

Sometimes I imagine I get sick or I hurt myself, like lupus or a fall, and I’m collapsed on the kitchen floor. I see my ex shoulder down the apartment door. He drops to his knees next to me and rocks me in his arms.

“Baby,” he says into my long hair and I know he’s thinking how much he missed my papaya-scented shampoo.

In the emergency room, he tells the nurse I’m not his wife or the mother of his children and that’s enough. He says he should have known all along that was enough.

This morning, after more news about Occupy Wall Street, Occupy San Francisco, Occupy Oakland, but no news today about Occupy Me, I left for work and for playing at normal. I drove away from our apartment that’s now my apartment and beautiful terrible maple leaves of gold rot lifted from the windshield wipers and went flying falling. I drove faster, until all the leaves disappeared stayed.

Ethel Rohan is the author of Hard to Say (PANK, 2011) and Cut Through the Bone (Dark Sky Books, 2010). You can visit her at ethelrohan.com.

6 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. My Name is Faith, and am really grateful and thankful for what Dr voodoo
      has done for me and my family. I Was having HIV/AIDS for good three years
      with no solution, the diseases almost took my life and cause I was unable
      to work and I was also loosing lots of money for medication, but one
      faithful day when I went online, I met lots of testimonies about this great
      man so I decided to give it a try and to God be the glory he did it. he
      cured me of my diseases and am so happy and so pleased to Write about him
      today. if you need his help of you also want to get cured just the way I
      got mine, add Dr voodoo on whatsApp: +2348140120719 or just contact Dr
      voodoo via email, voodoospelltemple66@gmail.com

      Delete
  2. Thank you for reading and commenting.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am Precious Levitte, I promise to share this testimony all over the world once my boyfriend return back to me, and today with all due respect i want to thank Olorun for bringing joy and happiness to my relationship and my family. I want to inform you all that there is a spell caster that is real and genuine. I never believed in any of these things until i loosed my boyfriend, I required help until i found (Olorunoduduwaspiritualtemple@gmail.com ) a grate spell caster, And he cast a love spell for me, and he assured me that I will get my boyfriend back in two days after the spell has been cast. two days later, my phone rang, and so shockingly, it was my boyfriend who has not called me for past 3 years now, and made an apology for the heart break, and told me that he is ready to be my back bone till the rest of his life with me. Olorun released him up to know how much i loved and wanted him. And opened his eyes to picture how much we have share together. As I’m writing this testimony right now I’m the most happiest girl on earth and me and my fiance is living a happy life and our love is now stronger than how it were even before our break up. So that’s why I promised to share my testimony all over the universe.All thanks goes to Olorun for the excessive work that he has done for me. Below is the email address in situation you are undergoing a heart break, and I assure you that as he has done mine for me, he will definitely help you too. email him on; Olorunoduduwaspiritualtemple@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. I am John Danilla from UK( northern ireland), i want to share a
    testimony on how a powerful spell caster cured my HIV disease, i was
    diagnosed of this disease, in the year 2009, last week i saw a testimony on
    Dr.Akioya on how he cured an HIV patient, so i contacted him through phone
    call and he asked me to email him, which idid, so he told me that all my
    problems is over and then he decided to do an healing spell spell for me so
    after he finished it, he told me to wait for just 24 hours and then i
    should go for a test, so i really did as he had said, so my greatest
    surprised when i went to the hospital to go for an HIV test, the Medical
    doctor diagnosed that, i am now HIV negetative at first i was amazed and
    now i have come to realise that this spell caster Dr. Akioya is a very
    powerful one and a real spell caster. So viewers of this should please join
    me in my celebration for i am the happiest man on earth today and if you
    want to contact him, you can do this via his email
    (drakioya17spellhome@gmail.com or call him or whatsapp him
    +2348105257464.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am John Danilla from UK( northern ireland), i want to share a
    testimony on how a powerful spell caster cured my HIV disease, i was
    diagnosed of this disease, in the year 2009, last week i saw a testimony on
    Dr.Akioya on how he cured an HIV patient, so i contacted him through phone
    call and he asked me to email him, which idid, so he told me that all my
    problems is over and then he decided to do an healing spell spell for me so
    after he finished it, he told me to wait for just 24 hours and then i
    should go for a test, so i really did as he had said, so my greatest
    surprised when i went to the hospital to go for an HIV test, the Medical
    doctor diagnosed that, i am now HIV negetative at first i was amazed and
    now i have come to realise that this spell caster Dr. Akioya is a very
    powerful one and a real spell caster. So viewers of this should please join
    me in my celebration for i am the happiest man on earth today and if you
    want to contact him, you can do this via his email
    (drakioya17spellhome@gmail.com or call him or whatsapp him
    +2348105257464.

    ReplyDelete