“To See For One’s Self: On The Lyric Essay” by Brian Oliu

The room has been spinning for weeks: not spinning as if I am the center pole of a centrifuge, not like how they separate milk from cream, not like my blood in the lab to separate itself from itself—red into red, white into white, other colors, certainly, perhaps a grey, perhaps a scarlet, perhaps floating, perhaps clawing at the sides like a carnival ride, spinning, spinning, perhaps sinking to the bottom.  Perhaps purple.  Perhaps violet:  perhaps separating the n from the word.  This is a lot about what is not and as of late I am defined by what I am not:  I have not had a stroke.  I am not dying more than usual, though my body tells me in the middle of the night that I might be:  the breath vacuuming up through my left side and through my teeth; a shock I can feel in my eyes. I did not mean to use the word I, here, as I am not detached yet—the room is still spinning, I am still not a lot of things.  I could tell you about the tests, but you know the tests—I could tell you about the feeling, but you know the feeling:  a couple drinks from too many drinks, loosened up, ready to kiss the person you’ve been thinking about kissing yet too far away from kissing the person you’ve never thought about kissing—darts go where you want them to, cue ball angles are more possible, every song sounding good.  Except you know better.  Scratch that:  except I know better, that every bit of me knows better, and this is not better.  Let me start again:  the room has been spinning for weeks, though it is not spinning:  it is as if you are dreaming about a house that you once lived in.  It is your house but it is not your house—the kitchen is to the right, the stairs lead to a different room, the walls change to reveal faces of people you have never considered thinking about:  the girl who hands you a lemonade and says my pleasure, hands you a receipt and says my pleasure, who reminds you at that moment of your time in Belgium, where anytime you are handed anything they say if you please, not in your language, but in theirs, all strung together:  just say allsyoubelieve as fast as possible—unless they see your eyes and see your sneakers and sense your stutter and amazement at flavors of potato chips and the finding of words he finds normal you find strange, and then, but only then they say please:  the loss of formalities, of regality, just please, and this is what the nurse said to you while you were there, that lovely nurse who would wake you in the middle of the night to take your blood, all the while saying please before sticking the needle through your skin.  And maybe that is why the girl who handed you the lemonade is there:  because she says my pleasure as charmfully lifeless as someone taking blood, and your left arm hurts from where the needle went in.  You forget words but keep talking as if you are not forgetting them:  substituting the names of people for the names of other people despite knowing them as two things with two different lives, despite not talking to one of them for years, despite attending the funeral of another.  All the while, the room gently spins, or it doesn’t.  This is not what I wanted to tell you about.  What I wanted to tell you about was where they tried to spin the room back the other way:  they told me to close my eyes and they blew hot air into my ears:  the nurse said she would wait a minute and then take it out and I thought she meant the air—that it would be in there until she brought forth a device I have never seen nor would I ever see—keep your eyes closed—that would take everything back.  Now is the time to tell you that when someone whispers in my ear I see colors:  purple, violet.  When the bar where we drink gets too loud, and it always does, you talk loudly into my ear so that I might hear what you are trying to say:  of a drink, another drink, of how loud it is.  Sometimes I see things there too, but only sometimes.  This was more like that:  the darkness of my eyes while my lip curled up, folding my nose into my cheek, like I am bracing myself for the air to form words that I want to hear:  this is normal, you are going to be okay, there is love here and yet it never does.  It is dark and this might be a love story.  This might be a love story because it is romantic not knowing what is killing you:  we all love a good mystery.  This is the first time my body has a secret admirer and it cannot wait to gossip.  The body loves to whisper.  I imagine the air filling every crevice of my brain, my spectacular brain that says with a wink that nothing is wrong, all of the wrinkles, gathering up speed like it is drifting off the dunes:  passwords achildhoodnamemisspelled and song lyrics slowmotionisbetterthannomotion and people I have yet to forgive cannotsaytheirnameseven and how to say thank you justsaycrackofdawnfastaspossible and yet all I am doing is wondering how to tell you about it.  I could say they did a test where they told me to close my eyes, then blew hot air in my ears and then had me open my eyes and recite lists of things in alphabetical order:  name something in the supermarket that starts with the letter A, and how I said apple.  B, I said banana.  Cereal, Doritos, Eggs, Fish, Garbage, no, I meant garbagebags but you are already on H and I have not thought this far ahead.  It is time to feel dizzy and close my eyes and get told to keep them open, but I cannot think of H with my eyes open—that I am seeing the supermarket like I am seeing my house in the dream—green walls, the produce to the back and now I am seeing my house that is not my house:  house, house house, that if I could remember the house I could remember everything—walking through it and seeing the hotdogs on the plate in the kitchen, the icecream in the freezer, the juice on the counter.  The nurse says the answer does not matter, but God damn it it does.  I could tell you this, but I can’t make you feel it and I can’t make you be there.  I could tell you all of this, but I cannot tell you what comes next, though you can certainly guess:  the hot air pours into my other ear and I am asked to recite names this time.  A is for Adam.  B is for Brian, of course, the answers matter.  When we get to the letter your name starts with, the room is spinning as badly as it ever has.  When we get to the letter your name starts with, your name is the only one I can think of, but I refuse to say it out loud.

Brian Oliu (http://www.brianoliu.com) is originally from New Jersey and currently lives in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.  New work appears in Hotel Amerika, Fairy Tale Review, Puerto del Sol, RealPoetik and Drunken Boat.  His collection of Tuscaloosa Craigslist Missed Connections, ‘So You Know It’s Me’, was released in June 2011 by Tiny Hardcore Press.