CHICKEN (in a box)

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

(note: this is not part III of FIRST (TRAVEL). i took a detour over the past week, a layover of the soul. it will follow soon.)

“I think I have figured out what (one of my) issues. I am my chicken, in a box,” I say as though it is the most normal of statements.

“You what? I do not understand. Did you say you like Jack in the Box?”

“No,” I respond. “Literally. My chicken is in a box. It is where I keep her.”

“Like Popeyes? I thought you stopped eating meat?”

“No. I mean I still do not eat meat, except for fish, of course, and I am not prepared to debate the logic of being a pescatarian. But she is quite alive, at least for the time being.”

“You aren’t making sense. Why do you have one of your chickens in a box?”

“It is a long story,” I hesitate, but not heading my own advice, I continue. “About three weeks ago I noticed that one of my chickens, my last Mottled Ancona, Spotty, she was being abused by the last Rhode Island Red –she was never given a name. I could tell she was getting old, not quite her usual self, and for what appeared to be no apparent reason, while in the run, Red would peck at her head, causing Spotty to run and hide behind the bamboo.”

“Wait, ‘not quite her usual self? What is her usual self? And how on earth could you tell this from a chicken?”

“I admit, it was a supposition, because we only interact in the morning, letting them out and at night, when closing the coop. But something was off. She was choosing a lower perch at night and seemed less sure on her feet than usual. Maybe she was just getting old, as she is just turned nine. But one day Red was ruthless, whenever she would encounter Spotty, she would peck at her head. Yelling at Red and swatting her away, after a bit, Red was back at her. A super soaker from the kids was a brief deterrent, but no matter how many times she was sprayed, she would be back; Red seemed intent on pecking her to death.”

“That is awful. How do you know that was what Red was doing?”

“It happened before. Red’s sister harassed a Buff Orrington and one morning she was dead in the corner of the coop. Chickens can be mean.”

“But the box, how did she end up in a box?”

“Worried she wouldn’t make it through the day, I removed her from the run and kept her in box and built a separate enclosure, next to the run. She sleeps in a box at night and I let her out into the pen in the morning.”

“I am sorry, but what does this have to do with you? This seems more of a hard lesson of the barn yard, not the human psyche.”

“Cannot let go. Still fucked up by Liz.” My stare is to the floor. “I think I am doing better, then obsess about a chicken, or spiral when, well, you know.”

“The text.” Silence. “Her breakup text.”

Heart beating irregularly, breathing shallow, a knot forming, the end of a new relationship that seemed so promising. Didn’t want to think about this right now.

“It was my fault,” I explain. “It was because of who I am, how I acted.”

“Your fault? Why isn’t it anything other what she wrote: “you aren’t the right fit, that your expectations don’t line up,” or that she “doesn’t have the capacity to give you what you are looking for?””

“Thinking for the past three days, obsessing, dissecting what was said, how I acted, impossible for me to focus on anything else. I just keep wondering why? Why does my heart hurt so damn much, why am I such a mess? We were only dating for three months. Why am I lost?”

Therapy, doctors, without hesitation a diagnosis of trauma, obvious they say. “Step back and consider,” while prescriptions scribbled into charts, pills placed in orange bottles, “you were in an emotional war, battling, losing.” The test results, treatment, failures of medicine, body, and mind. Months before the end, watching, witnessing muscle and strength waste away. Stress; trying, hoping that the new cocktail, fourth or fifth combination of drugs would slow the growth of the cancer. Sleep impossible, disrupted, sporadic. There was only the two; becoming everything from nurse to maid, cook to confidant. Everything to nothing, without warning or opportunity to speak, truths left unsaid. Each moment imprinted, a stain not shed in weeks, months, years; a tumble of flight and fight, climbing over each other to surface, clawing and eye-gouging, nothing off-limit.

“The feelings you are experience are normal, understandable. When your anxiety rises, when nervousness appears, take a few moments, deliberate breaths,” they tell me. “Feelings are valid; you can find ways to cope.”

Cope, from the Latin, colaphus, a punch, or the Middle English coupen, to strike. if fists could connect with feelings, this would be a row. there is no fight left.

“It is more,” they continue. “Codependency was necessary because of the illness, caretaker, a habit harder to quit than nicotine, but now is your chance to change.” Tendencies invading relationships, old and new. (Temporary) flaws to acknowledge, accept inevitable stress cracks, practice kintsugi, a work in progress, while working, unlearning learned traits. “Tell them, be open.”

“So, blame my shortcomings on what she went through, when cancer never invaded me?”

“It isn’t a permanent flaw, just new you; recognize where you are; the people who love you will understand, they will.”

“Not the people who know, understand, new, people only just met, how can they know, how can they forgive?”

“They may not, but you will not know if you do not give them a chance. A closed door stops, open and unlocked is the only possibility for passage.” Suddenly everyone is a Taoist monk.

but they are right. alone, no one to take care, yearning for touch, presence, unable to find a new connection. when possibility exists, sweats, worries about leaving, losing the possibility causes stress, overcompensation and text breakup. the conundrum confounds.

“I am the god damned chicken in the box,” I say, raising my hands in a Gallic shrug. “Broken. Unable to be with others, only safe in my separate cage. She said I “love-bombed” her; I mean what the fuck is that anyways?”

“You didn’t. You liked her and wanted to spend time together, that is a relationship. Wanting to be together but not intruding, not crossing boundaries, that isn’t what that means. She wasn’t able to love you; there was not enough space in her life.”

“But I can’t keep trying,” I respond, answering the unasked question. “I think something is really fractured, wrong inside. I cannot describe it, but it feels like, like losing (her) all over again.”

“That is the grief. It hasn’t left you.”

Often, we fill silence with our words. Otherwise, we allow internal dialogue to repeat and replay.

“And Spotty, is she better; has she returned to her ‘usual self’?”

“No, she cannot really walk. She mostly sits, leaning against the side of the enclosure, but still eats and drinks water. I wonder if Red knew something that I didn’t, that it was her time.”

“She isn’t ready yet. It is a good thing she has you.”