Houses Out of Boxes
By Kathleen Radigan
Sometimes I get in the mood of wanting to make houses out of boxes. It comes when you see a box and you know that if you stacked it on top of another one, and another on top of that, then eventually you’d have a secret house that you could live inside. This knowledge invigorates me. It possesses me to run up staircases in bare feet, and not to worry about walking heel before toe, but to sail on like a bottle rocket. If I were to title the mood and categorize it, it would not be called Energized, or Excited. It would be called Wanting to Make Houses out of Boxes. This title alone would be enough to spring forth a well-lit mental path, enabling me to place and taste the precise zoom, the energy, the fireflies of thought that this mood entails.
Feeling has so many flavors and colors. For instance there is the aftertaste of small humiliations, the distraction of an itchy sweater, the feeling of closing your eyes to sleep and knowing that someone, far away, is waking up at the same time. We are incapable of accurately describing these emotions in any broader categories.
Broad categories, under which fall broad shoulders, broad streets, under which always fall broad minds, under which fall the most particular of memories. On a broad scale, everything important is small.
I have a new red hat. I like to wear it when I go out walking, for the sole purpose of letting snow collect in its bill. It falls into flaky rivers, building in spots, fit for the exploration of tiny avengers. I was told when I was little never to go poking around in places you’ve never heard of, so I invented new places and poked around in those.
Why do we do things? Why? Why are you continuing to read this? It doesn’t make any sense to you, it doesn’t even make sense to me! Do you want to know what I’ll say next? Are you legitimately curious? I dare you to stop.
You didn’t stop, did you? Especially not after I dared you. This is because human beings are naturally contrarians, which is a word that reminds me instantly of canaries. We’re naturally canaries too, you might figure after listening to enough shower-singers, lawnmowing crooners and backseat boomers. Hummingboys. Hummingboys sing gently, like curling fingers gently around a woman’s thin wrist or thigh. Humming the whole time, something sweet, gasp, mumble, hum ouch oh. Painting with gentle strokes, a full ocean to sail inside white sheets.
Did you know I can be funny? I can. I can make you laugh about things you never thought to laugh about. I could make your neck snap. I’m dangerous. All the while I’ll be painting my nails some innocuous shade. I’ve never been a humming-girl, I always fly full blast from every speaker in the house. Neighbors stand up to shut the windows and then hover in the sills, too transfixed to make another move.
I shot an alien in the neck once, then wrote a song about it. He was okay. I brought him scissors and glue in the hospital, playdough too, and paper plates and chicken legs and madlibs. I told him about the Indonesian fisherman who turned into a tree, and he asked so earnestly if the opposite process might be plausible. If men can turn to trees then why not trees to men? he shouted when I wryly laughed. He said You’re human, not me.
Why are your hospitals so white?
Why is your meat so full of bones? Why are your silences so full of bones? And why, your bodies? He said you look in mirrors all day long, and all you see is the line on the edge of your cheek where skin ends and orange make-up begins. Where I come from, he said, everyone is a mirror to everyone else. You look at a stranger and you see what you look like. And on my planet you always look ugly and glorious and full of bumps and smooth places. Here there’s so many bones people struggle to hide. They do a good enough job for the most part, it’s a shame to say, but if you look you can find the breaks, the bones in wrists and under necks. He asked, you’re human. Why does no one ever look?
I told him I did and all I ever found was disappointment. I prefer to spend my time making houses out of boxes. They’re cardboard, but they’re durable. And when I’m ready to close up for the day, I unpack all the boxes from inside my lungs and heart and from my legs and the smoothness under my neck, in the corners of my memories, in the bones of my silences, and I secretly stack them inside of each other.
- - -
Kathleen Radigan is a sixteen year old poet, writer and girl. She loves pancakes and absurdity, and aspires to someday tour the world by hot air balloon.
By Kathleen Radigan
Sometimes I get in the mood of wanting to make houses out of boxes. It comes when you see a box and you know that if you stacked it on top of another one, and another on top of that, then eventually you’d have a secret house that you could live inside. This knowledge invigorates me. It possesses me to run up staircases in bare feet, and not to worry about walking heel before toe, but to sail on like a bottle rocket. If I were to title the mood and categorize it, it would not be called Energized, or Excited. It would be called Wanting to Make Houses out of Boxes. This title alone would be enough to spring forth a well-lit mental path, enabling me to place and taste the precise zoom, the energy, the fireflies of thought that this mood entails.
Feeling has so many flavors and colors. For instance there is the aftertaste of small humiliations, the distraction of an itchy sweater, the feeling of closing your eyes to sleep and knowing that someone, far away, is waking up at the same time. We are incapable of accurately describing these emotions in any broader categories.
Broad categories, under which fall broad shoulders, broad streets, under which always fall broad minds, under which fall the most particular of memories. On a broad scale, everything important is small.
I have a new red hat. I like to wear it when I go out walking, for the sole purpose of letting snow collect in its bill. It falls into flaky rivers, building in spots, fit for the exploration of tiny avengers. I was told when I was little never to go poking around in places you’ve never heard of, so I invented new places and poked around in those.
Why do we do things? Why? Why are you continuing to read this? It doesn’t make any sense to you, it doesn’t even make sense to me! Do you want to know what I’ll say next? Are you legitimately curious? I dare you to stop.
You didn’t stop, did you? Especially not after I dared you. This is because human beings are naturally contrarians, which is a word that reminds me instantly of canaries. We’re naturally canaries too, you might figure after listening to enough shower-singers, lawnmowing crooners and backseat boomers. Hummingboys. Hummingboys sing gently, like curling fingers gently around a woman’s thin wrist or thigh. Humming the whole time, something sweet, gasp, mumble, hum ouch oh. Painting with gentle strokes, a full ocean to sail inside white sheets.
Did you know I can be funny? I can. I can make you laugh about things you never thought to laugh about. I could make your neck snap. I’m dangerous. All the while I’ll be painting my nails some innocuous shade. I’ve never been a humming-girl, I always fly full blast from every speaker in the house. Neighbors stand up to shut the windows and then hover in the sills, too transfixed to make another move.
I shot an alien in the neck once, then wrote a song about it. He was okay. I brought him scissors and glue in the hospital, playdough too, and paper plates and chicken legs and madlibs. I told him about the Indonesian fisherman who turned into a tree, and he asked so earnestly if the opposite process might be plausible. If men can turn to trees then why not trees to men? he shouted when I wryly laughed. He said You’re human, not me.
Why are your hospitals so white?
Why is your meat so full of bones? Why are your silences so full of bones? And why, your bodies? He said you look in mirrors all day long, and all you see is the line on the edge of your cheek where skin ends and orange make-up begins. Where I come from, he said, everyone is a mirror to everyone else. You look at a stranger and you see what you look like. And on my planet you always look ugly and glorious and full of bumps and smooth places. Here there’s so many bones people struggle to hide. They do a good enough job for the most part, it’s a shame to say, but if you look you can find the breaks, the bones in wrists and under necks. He asked, you’re human. Why does no one ever look?
I told him I did and all I ever found was disappointment. I prefer to spend my time making houses out of boxes. They’re cardboard, but they’re durable. And when I’m ready to close up for the day, I unpack all the boxes from inside my lungs and heart and from my legs and the smoothness under my neck, in the corners of my memories, in the bones of my silences, and I secretly stack them inside of each other.
- - -
Kathleen Radigan is a sixteen year old poet, writer and girl. She loves pancakes and absurdity, and aspires to someday tour the world by hot air balloon.
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