Issue 1:
Balance
Jane Butkin Roth
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Covering My Checks, and Balancing
It's just me standing in this line at the bank trying to make a deposit first thing Monday morning. Not such a terrible task, there is no danger here, no street to cross, but for the night before and my feeling not quite myself, the dogs barking in the night, the children with their nightmares and my feeling like telling them I don't give a damn. Must have been satanic voices come to talk to me. I shouldn't be held accountable. I've waited till the last minute -- longer -- gambling with insufficient funds and jail sentences, but no one seems to notice -- and my legs unshaven, teeth not brushed. Here comes my old friend, Paranoia, to make his deposit, too. He keeps me company, there is no danger here, no street to cross, but all those eyes on me, I must look like some escapee from an asylum, or is it my breath that's so toxic, but it's understandable, they've never seen someone so hideous. Wonder if there's still a market for sideshow freaks at the circus, all this political correctness, and me born in the wrong times. Eyes too swollen for contacts, this face not used to glasses, think I'd rather be blind than
carrying all this heavy glass, my face and me in a fish bowl, a glass zoo, with everyone staring, scared to poke their fingers through for fear I'm a biter. I wonder how all of them got here so fast, bank just opened at nine o'clock, and me here right after. Fifty people got here fast, or didn't I notice when they all walked in front of me, could have been they said, "Ma'am?" wondering what was wrong and why I wasn't moving. Feel myself move now, slowly, we are making progress, no street to cross, just a line I can follow, so long as someone stands in front of me I don't need to know the way, there is no danger here, it won't be long now.
~Jane Butkin Roth
This piece appeared previously in Talus and Scree.
Jane's work has appeared world-wide in print and on the Internet. She is seeking a publisher for her new anthology of women's writings on divorce. Email.
© 1997 by Jane Butkin Roth. All Rights Reserved.
© 2000-2002 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.
This page updated April 23, 2002.