the golem

It was a lonely morning, close to midnight, when facets of the house I
had been living in began to reveal themselves. contracts signed and
promises handed lock stock and barrel, the lease was a snake, teeth
were time-bombed and the particulars glossed over. i may have been
thinking about going to sleep, when the sounds of settling began to
curl like a somber echo, from front window to living room.
it was a moment of loss. my name fell into a thick hole like the plot
of a murakami novel, and to recall it i had to stumble through the
objects not yet removed from boxes, searching for tax forms or old
childhood drawings or schoolbooks from youth. when i found a name i
stared it at for a long while, accepting its textured syllables. in
my own self-ruin i considered those pre-used texts purchased from
dusty caves of bookstores, with other names, with notations from old
classrooms, pages transformed by previous readers, the death of hope.
it has been several hours this morning, sitting in the stillness of a
new apartment. a coma in an eyeblink, stranger in my own skin.
stranger to think of what defines us as the material we think we
command. someone else has owned all these objects. the very feel of
them is a distinct violation. to remember and not to remember.
as a child I remember my house on fire, smoke inhalation, a small
lifetime of objects destroyed in ten mad minutes. every now and then
the recall of something lost for years to follow, the return of that
loss, a splintering misunderstanding, lessons of permanence. not sure
if I only owned something in dreams, no relics or fossils of its hold.
realizing the clothes on my back were the only pieces of fabric that
still held my smell, mixed in with the cancer of burning new york.
i could rent the space where all those ashes went, put my little world
back together. we stand in front of the house on fire, what's taken
for granted winks at us as it consumes itself. it's cold in front of
the fire and our coats are lost. the next morning as we sift through
the damage we exchange hope for quick comfort, salvaging humble bits
of lifetimes. some mornings i try to find it all.