#m;mp

marcel thinks: how can i not write about you?

for a while, since coming back to philadelphia, and on the way here, marcel tried to write about other things. the sea, perhaps, and the way it separates. there are lovers on the ship back home. they dance around and catch each other in the sunlight, and press their laughter against skin. it’s love’s stamp he sees imprinted on the neck of the woman who covers it up with a flimsy scarf. he tries to write about metal, about air, about worldly things, as if they’ll ground him, or remind him, or take him further away. either one works. he meets another artist (writers! they’re everywhere, aren’t they, demystifying the world?) and holds the man’s hand in his own, and traces the light scars of a sculpture. 

all the while he writes about them and apollo, and his smile, and his brightness – they’re all on paper.

marcel thinks: how can i not –?

– love greets him at the harbour. he writes poems about her and she’s delighted by them. by all accounts, it’s educated work. those brooklyn bastards might have something to say about it, but marcel is in philadelphia, and here they think he can write art out of the world’s soul-ink. he’d dip his pen on the essence of love and life and they won’t know where, exactly, it comes from, but thinks he’s writing about his wife. (they get married before he can blink himself awake.) right, right, my wife – now, listen – she smiles like the sun, he says to a bunch of up-and-comers, who come to his home thinking he’ll inspire them. he doesn’t make it his business to teach. he tells them to go out, to love, to get married, too – but that last part doesn’t quite sound right, so he usually stops at the second point.

he fights the urge to buy tickets to europe. his wife begs for him to stay in bed at night so he won’t look for someone else in his words. his wife begs for him to make love to her, so he does, and forgets love every time.

he doesn’t forget. he doesn’t forget. to forget is to lose your mind’s way, and god knows what he’ll do if he can’t remember the way home, to that dingy little place compared to this american home. paris is chock-full of people trying to keep their hearts beating and alive with the rest of the city, but marcel knows that his heart lies in that home that isn’t really his. and how can it be? it’s been a year, two, three. he counts it like the books he publishes; on philosophy and history and europe and life. they ask him things he wishes he knows more about. 

he drinks and smokes with the lads and one time, one time, finally – someone says that name. different context, of course. they’re talking about gods. they pause for a moment in contemplation and his god returns to him like the devil –

(marcel found his already, in the sunrise, knees on the floor and taking his god in his mouth.)

“i have to go,” he says, he excuses, and apologises: “no, i can’t stay, gentlemen – i’ll be back next week, don’t you worry! – of course we’ll negotiate that... yes, of course. the wife is waiting for me, you know...”

he wishes he could’ve made good on his word. he wishes he could be good.

in the morning he’s on a ship. in a week (or so, or more) he’s in paris.

he looks, and looks, and looks –

and knocks on the door. repentant sinner. “i tried.” he hasn’t slept. “i tried.” it’s warm; these arms, this body. marcel doesn’t have to wonder why he’s named after the god of light. “i tried.”