STANDARD PRACTICE

soft law / wet film

I used to sign things I wasn’t supposed to understand.

not in some dramatic, flashy way

just people running around everywhere, fluorescent lights, craft services, and someone saying “it’s standard”

like that made it gospel

and I’d nod. I needed the fucking money after the debt I’d acquired making myself anemic and manic-depressive at NYU.

film sets do that to you, they give you a sense of urgency because everyone else is running around with their asses on fire.

bruised and mealy craft service apples

sweating under plastic wrap,

me pretending I wasn’t counting coins

in my head like fucking rosary beads.

maybe I’ll be able to buy Jameson, marb reds

and cocaine this weekend. I had enough beans and rice to get me through for a while and eating was really just for sport anyway.

we were always waiting around for something to start.

or stop. hard to tell.

after wrap I’d go home

through that thin New York-blue exhaustion,

my bag smelling like other people’s stuff

and in my bathroom

the world would turn red.

not even metaphorically.

just a taped-up bulb

hanging there like a stupid decision I kept making anyway.

I’d spool film in the dark like I knew what I was doing. I didn’t, not really at least.

it’s drunken trust that only happens

when you’re broke enough to trust your own abilities vs. someone else’s. in this case a film lab. sink running.

developer tray clouding.

my hands going pale and unfamiliar,

me, trying very hard to stay alive on schedule.

and the thing is

I think I liked it more than any set.

on set I was a ghost with a film camera.

in my bathroom I was at least

in conversation and in charge with the art

nothing spoke back, obviously,

but still.

faces arriving slowly in liquid,

memory deciding what it wanted to keep.

I’d think about signatures. NDAS

developing chemicals drying my skin out

how easy it was to agree to things

when you were tired enough.

and I guess that was the joke of it

I thought I was entering the industry.

a young bull who would one day make movies of her own like a non Nepo Sofia Coppola

really I was just learning

how much of myself could be made invisible

without anyone noticing the difference.

any sort of creative spark was gone when I’d work jobs like this. any job really

some nights I’d hold the strip up

and watch it flicker under the red light

like it might tell me what to do next

it never did.