Anna and Alcedo in 1994, or, Your Face Is Going to Freeze That Way

I've still got that goose, of course. Until I took that picture out of its frame tonight, I'd forgotten he had a name. I'd begun thinking he was a she. Sorry, Alcedo. I owe you more loyalty than that. Mostly these days I knock my guitar over with you when you fall from on top of the boxes - yeah, those boxes - and off the shelf. We've been together a long time.

I make that face a lot in pictures. Remind me not to pout so much. I know I can get my way without having to beg for it. My heart pounds when I say the Pledge only because I rushed to get to class. I was ugly from age seven until the day I cut off my hair. I wish more people remembered the day I lost fourteen inches of the worthless past. "It's My Life" was playing in the shop. I hope whoever got the wig made a great future with it.

On the catwalk above the auditorium there's a lot of dirt, a lot of people, and me. I say, "I'm not scared of heights, I'm not scared of heights, I'm not scared of heights, I'm not scared of heights, I'm not scared of heights."

Ben says, "I don't believe you."

"Actually, I'm not," I say, and honestly. What I am is good at convincing myself of anything. Every time tawny fighter jets scream over the castle, my ghost appers on the wall of that balcony, flip-flops dangling three floors above the stone patio, screaming, "Wow! Wow!", because of the roar and the dead people and the danger and the carelessness. She's alive, she's so damned alive, screaming into the noise and the silence. I'm not afraid of having ever been so happy. I'm just afraid I'll never make it back.

There's eight hundred empty red seats a long way under the cracks between the boards. "It's not the height you should be scared of," says Ben, "It's the ground."

Faut qu'elle crève de bonheur
Ou qu'elle change de godasses
Faut qu'elle croule sous les fleurs
Change de couleur
Je vais prendre ta douleur,
Je vais jouer au docteur,
Je vais prendre ta douleur
- Camille, "Ta Douleur"

(Alex's concert pictures)
orginal one | arted one
orginial two | arted two