200words.

in that little room at the top of the house, it was warm enough to make me sleepy. you pointed to the bruise on my knee and said, hey, that’s your submission for FALL.

i said, oh yeah. i could do that.

but does anyone want to read about a girl too tired to wake up completely, and too drunk to find the right door, who tumbled gracelessly down a flight of stairs in the middle of the night?

i mean, don’t we all have a story like that?

besides, all i can really remember is this:

i dreamt i was lost in a maze of gauzy sheets and then, the surprise of no carpet under my foot and then there was the concise pain at the back of my head when the wall stopped me at the bottom.

the other injuries weren’t found until the next day.

on the next to last plane home, we made a sharp turn during our descent. i half-dreamed that the window opened up and then the panel around it was gone and then i was falling down down down toward the green lights on the ground.

i remember thinking:
what a relief to pass the enormous spinning engine unscathed.

“Slayer”

Flash of light, fades. Alien architecture comes into focus.
Blue - gold pulsing grav-lift.
In my ear,“You’re going down, bitch.”

My intent crystallizes.

Movement, left.
Vapor trails, reload, more vapor trails.
Frag and point. Easy.
“You always start off on that side.”

Incoming vapor trail. Way off right.
Recon by assault.
Contact.
Fire exchange. Pause.
He’s standing still. Charge and jack him.
Frag and point.
“You know, you really should take cover when reloading.”
“Yeah yeah. Let’s go, bitch.”

Movement, left. Vapor trails way high.
Crouch. Wait. Indicate.
Incoming. Wait for it. Take it.
“You never saw it coming.”

Respawn. High ground. Gear up. Hunt.
Indicate - jump through the grav-lift.
Jump again. Drawing vapor trails – he can’t hit movement.
One more lift - then unload.
Frag and point.
“Hey, nice shot.”
“You didn’t move from the position you fired from. They teach you that in Green Beret school?”
“You’re such a prick.”

“30 Seconds Remaining”

Aim at the wall. Fire.
“Ha ha. What happened?”
“Thought I saw you, got excited. Shot the wall.”
“You’re slippin’!”

Wall. Fire.
“Damn”

Wall. Fire.
“Damn Damn”

“Game Over”

“1 to nothin’. I’m getting better.”
“I can tell you’ve been practicing.”

I fall down a lot. I have weak ankles, and have a tendency to drag my
feet and twist them. I’ve tried to be conscious of the problem when I
walk, but I get lost in thought a lot and forget. On more than one
instance, friends have had to assist me. Once, I was walking my dog and
talking on my cell phone when I fell, and my friend had to get in her
car and drive to where I was to pick me up because I couldn’t get home.

I have twisted my ankle so many times that it has become a bit of a
joke. I’ve never broken one, though. I’m not sure what to do except
keep on falling. My body just keeps on rebelling against me.

At the end of summer the Korean Community of Greater Cleveland takes over the Brecksville Metroparks for their annual picnic/raffle/volley ball tournament.  That meant we would be missing church and I would have the entire day to run around with my friends.  

We‘d arrive and claim a picnic table in the pavilion.  Mom would start unpacking the food while dad stood with the other board members, talking loudly in Korean and looking important in his khaki shorts, suspenders, and aviator sunglasses.

I found my friends and we decided to go on a hike.  We told our moms where we were going.  They shooed us off, interrupting their jokes and gossip to quickly say “Don’t get into trouble.”  

We started for the “path” behind the swing set and the sand box.  It was so steep that climbing down the path required holding onto the anything on the way down-tree roots, branches, plants.  I went to grab a smallish looking tree root and started to climb down when it snapped.  I fell, and in the process managed to do four quick backwards somersaults and escape without any serious injury.  I stood up and pretended I had meant to do that all along.

falling makes gravity visual
gives it a picture
but is misleading
makes us think gravity is a force
rather than a tendency

(As Margaret Atwood writes in Cat’s Eye “Cordelia has a tendency to exist.”)

or at least confuses the fact that it’s a function of space
curved space

(I’m no physicist, unfortunately. I was too busy taking Fine Art as a non-vocational
course at a vocational school, or as we call it here in central Ohio, Career Center,
to take physics. Sounds vaguely distopian to me now, “Career Center.” As Ted
Knight says in Caddyshack “The world needs ditch diggers too.”)

what you see as a straight line is not straight at all
it’s a straight line in curved space
which makes it a curved line
and that’s why I love fat guys,
or rather how I love fat guys
how I fall for fat guys

(It’s like Laurie Anderson said “…over and over, you’re falling, and then catching yourself, from falling…”, or choosing not to catch yourself.)

attracted by their gravity
the curve they push in space
the dent they make
it’s like floating really fast
not down, but toward

A: (As Todd Haynes writes in Poison “Both.”)