the static apneatic

alas, i can't find a violin tiny enough to play for you miss.

though

antonio stradivari did not design a violin

specifically

for playing when she is around

one finds the need to go to their closet to

get that instrument that they played when they were a

kid

to then dust it off

& start sliding the bow back and

forth

as when she gets going

the other coworkers can’t do anything but be

unwillingly

invited

to her pity party.

 

the static apneatic is in her late 40’s

maybe early 50’s---

you know she’d love you to ask

or

make an estimate

so that she could take offense

or talk of all the things that she hasn’t done

which she could have done

but instead

she had children.

 

her husband, as far as her coworkers are concerned

is a complete

waste

of

space---at least that’s how he is characterized.

 

he used to talk when he was younger it seems,

but now,

30 years later (30 years of a faithful marriage),

this man whose name we don’t know,

well

he doesn’t talk as much to her

and

all he does is work

and

she walks around the workplace offering up verses of

eric carmen’s “all by myself” to the room

in a sort of whimper

which we are all supposed to spend time trying to

hear?

 

she’s locked in something that she doesn’t want to be in---

yes,

she’s standing there,

stationary---

this static apneatic,

she is

upright & holding her breath in the water.

 

she’s in a secure & complacent pool---

bought

&

paid for---

but she closes her eyes and wishes that she was able to

hold her breath in a more exciting body of water---

maybe a river,

a deep stream,

or in the middle of a monsoon somewhere.

 

but you & i & all the people that we work with know that she would

never

ever

pack up this life that she hates

& go anywhere else in the attempt to

better her own

life.

 

and just how satisfying would that process be?

think about it---

that first attempt to actually breathe above the surface of the water again---

after all the years spent holding all that really mattered inside her.

 

her true self,

waiting alone---

consuming its final meal of sustenance before walking those

39 steps to its final end---

gassed,

hung,

lethally injected into a complete departure from the reality

which

only

she

can change. 

having an excuse for every reason to move forward on her own,

she alone is trying to beat out

david blaine

&

those that came before him.

 

and like blaine on opera,

she’s watching the clock as the seconds pile up

& she’s feeling the deadening in her arm---

secretly hoping for a heart attack

(something that would simply wash this all away).

 

the static apneatic,

a devout catholic of more years than the miserable marriage has

tolled,

stares up through the water,

searching for an answer---

praying &

pleading,

to that which she blames for putting her there, while at the same moment,

feeling that only this thing can

lift her from this place in which she will surely

perish---

sooner or later.

 

& though her legs are stiff,

her muscles ache,

her mind it pangs,

&

her heart it yearns without a pause for rest---

she still hasn’t lost the ability to cry

underwater.