table – naomi garceau

     I was at a table with an empty bottle of gin and my grandfather. And I know he’s dead. And I know he’s at the table. And I know that my bruise-blue hands and blood-sweat face tell me this is the end. We’ve been here three days now and neither of us have showered and that easy booze stink doesn’t smell anymore and neither do the short burn cigarettes like a perfect bouquet in the ashtray. And I know we have the same name and that we’re together, but neither of us is us and we’re not at the table. There’s the table and a heat lamp looking down on cold blooded bodies and that’s me and that’s him and there’s the dark where we don’t go- can’t go because someone’s walking around over there and this table is ours. 
     The chair I’m sitting in is the same as my grandfather’s deathbed and I don’t know if I'm in the chair, or at the table. I know I’m neither, but I’m afraid that I haven’t asked all my questions yet. The floor is open and the ceiling is missing, but I know they’re there and I’m somewhere between and I’m comfortable. There’s a cigarette in my mouth, smoking in the shape of a home and time is a photograph taken in the dark. 
     My clothes are a permanent stain, my skin is the fabric and my mother isn’t my mother because Faulkner told me so and he was there, but I didn’t see him and I never won a Nobel Peace Prize, but I’m calm as a Buddha and I know I deserve one. My lips are burning holes back through my lungs and my throat, and my fingernails are stained tobacco-tooth yellow like my tobacco teeth and I can’t help but think he’s disappointed, but I’m calm and I can’t ask any more questions because I’m afraid I’ve asked too many. 
     Each time I talk, I haven’t talked, haven’t moved, haven’t screamed, haven’t felt, haven’t had, haven’t been and the words are all empty and we’re using new words now, now words like -------- and @#$%@$& and we don’t need to say anything to talk now and he’s comfortable and I’m calm and this is how we talk- you wouldn’t understand because you aren’t calm and you need words and you like things like you like sex and being comfortable and together with someone and being lonely and having sex and feeling lonely. You wouldn’t understand because you don’t understand because you are you and we aren’t we and you aren’t we and neither am I and I want you to know that it’s not because I don’t like you, it’s that I can’t have sex with you. 
     Sometimes I forget I’m here and that’s okay because I am calm. I am too calm to breathe, too calm to eat and the gin is gone so I pour the last glass and drink the last of the gin and my grandfather is displeased and so he pours himself a glass and he drinks with me. 
	“                             ” he says,
	“       ” I tell him and things are normal again and we’re at the table.
     I’m afraid I might be dead, but I know that if I ask, I am dead and so I don’t ask because I don’t want to die because I’m sitting in a home between the ceiling and the floor and my grandfather is here and I don’t want to leave and I can’t leave because I never made it to his funeral and can only remember his death by Les Tournesols by Van Gogh and I remember that he is nothing like sunflowers. 
     I’m wondering if asking myself a question is asking a question and decide that I’ve already asked a question by my wondering and wonder if I’m naked or sweating. I don’t care much either way, it’s a point of curiosity and it wouldn’t matter much either way because I’m at the table and you wouldn’t be able to see me fully naked because you’re not here with us. 
     I’m confused, but I know and by knowing I’m confused makes me know and I’m more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize because I know and I’m calm as a Buddha and I don’t smoke because my cigarette is in the ashtray and it smokes, not me and I don’t use the word it because I know and it doesn’t. 
     I’m alone and so I wonder if I’m alone.
     I’m sitting on a couch and no one knows what time it is because there’s only when people go to sleep and when they wake up and I’m somewhere between. I’m looking at the lamp and inside my liver, it’s warm and I’m cold and on a clear night, you can see three, beautiful moons from the window, but I know there’s only one and I’m not my grandfather and there aren’t windows here because I’m sitting at a table and tables don’t have windows. 
     I’m sitting at a table and someone is walking towards me and I think “Death” and Death thinks differently and my grandfather agrees and so we all agree that it’s not Death and that I’m alive and I wonder what floor it’s walking on because I can hear its shoes and I can’t move because I’m sitting at a table with my grandfather. 
     And I’m sitting on a couch and my grandmother is here and it’s only her and I can’t think because she’s not with us and I’m with my grandfather and I know that he’s dead, but he’s here and she isn’t dead and Death wouldn’t come for me and I’m confused but I know and I’m wondering how to get my Nobel Peace Prize now and the table is warm because I’m cold. 
     The table is warm because I’m cold, but my liver is warm so I’m not all cold, but my grandfather is all warm because he’s sweating more than me and I can smell his deodorant but I don’t have a nose because time is a photograph and I didn’t have a nose in the photograph because my nose is on my face and not on a photograph because photographs don’t have noses and I can smell because this is my nose not the photograph’s nose. 
     I’m sitting at a table and I’m looking at a photograph, but I’m sitting at a table and I’m not looking at anything and I wonder if that makes me a liar and if I’m a liar if I’m dead because if I’m a liar I’m not alive because I said I was alive and so I would be dead and my grandfather is dead and I don’t smoke. 
     I want to be president because people remember presidents and I want to be remembered because I’m not my grandfather and no one remembers my grandfather and I think of what I would do to be the president and I think of how I’m a good liar and that I would be a good president and I know I don’t want to be president and I don’t want to lie, I want to be remembered. 
     My mother tells me I’m grieving, but I don’t know what I would grieve because I know my grandfather is dead and he has been for two years now and I know that he’s dead and I’m not sad and my eyes are sweating down my face and I know I’m warm because I’m like my grandfather and we sweat the same and I know he’s disappointed, but he’s happy and my family is here, but I’m alone at a table and they’re not here and I’m a liar and they don’t trust me because I smoke. 
     I walk into an empty room and I sit down at a table and I’m a liar and I’ve been lying to you. My grandfather has been dead for eight years now and I’m a woman. We don’t share the same name because I am not a memory and my grandfather is a memory. I am alone at a table and my memories are gone. I can’t stop smoking because I can’t learn to trust myself and I’m calm as a Buddha and darkness stares blankly through me across the table. It’s disappointment that’s written with eyes and nose and mouth and beard. I’m standing next to a table and my memories haunt me. The table dreams ghosts out of boredom and I am not a ghost, I can leave when I please.