Bloodloss.

I've lost far too much blood.

I think my heart might

just

...

stop.

Nov 23 Shorts

I.
I haven't seen you since the world fell in.

(And whose fault is that, exactly?
Not mine or I'd have known by now;
they've taken to sending out notices by mail
last one I got said
'February'
and nothing more.
I've known you, I remembered,
for February.
Maybe it was better forgotten by
March.)



II.
I want you
to come out of hiding
and run
my life for me
so I don't have to
do anything
except remember.
It takes up more time
than I expected.




III.
You said you wouldn't
couldn't shouldn't
lie to me. But I
think we both
knew you did.




IV.
I remember what it was like
when you were sick and the only
thing I wanted to do was hold you.
That was stupid of me; everyone wants
something from someone. I guess
I gave a little too
freely. But I won't ask for
that sanity back. It's
driven me off the edge,
and now I'm the one
in the hospital bed,
laughing at walls that don't exist.




V.
You think these blankets
can't remember the taste of tears?
(Been four months and counting.)
Or do you think I've forgotten?
I used to make myself cry -
tears won't abandon a lover
(you said love)
(I did)
so easily
(does that mean - )
(don't read into it; it'll hurt).




VI.
I keep finding pieces of you
around, like you were a
soldier in combat, got
blown to bits and I've
been slowly recovering
the fragments; holding
onto them, even if
that's taking it
too far. I guess that
decomposing memories
are alike enough to
rotted bodies;
no one wants to get
near enough to be
doused by the stench.




VII.
I guess I finally
figured out that
I love you has
always been
will always be
a lie; and I'm
leaving soon anyway,
so what's the point in
trying to make forever
last longer than a few breaths?




VIII.
I thought I'd learned
to mistrust perfection
properly but I guess
I've forgotten all my long
lessons, that we moved
beyond recalling what's
important or maybe
I'm managing
to fool myself
again - biological
functions and all.





IX.
I'm a better liar
than you give me credit
for being because I can
make myself believe and
what I manage to see as the
truth no lie detector can find.

(Except that once, when you
told me every time I say I'm
fine I'm lying; that might
be the goddamn truth.
But I still make believe
I'm okay. And everyone
believes me too.)




X.
You'd think I'd get over it by now
that I'd stop putting myself
into hellfire to get a scrap of
attention. But the masochistic
side doesn't like reason any more
than the sane one likes being alone.
And both aren't satisfied any longer.
Can I blame you?



XI.
I can't help but remember the way
you used to put your mouth over mine,
and breathe air back in like you were
recalling me to life from a death I
didn't know I'd suffered.




XII.
I don't have a reason for the anger.
Except that I can't make you read my
mind. And life might be so much easier
if only you could.




XIII.
Disappointment doesn't hurt as much
when I know it comes from
drugs taken six hundred miles
away.




XIV.
You're too far away.
Fix that?
Love.
Please, don't overuse
the word
that makes me lose
myself.




XV.
I miss you.
I love you.
Or was it loved?
Someone told me
that love has no
past tense;
that if it goes in the past,
it never was real.
And I think I'm beginning
to understand that.
Love.

Torn.

When it comes down to it, these words are only promises. And I said I wouldn't say them to you, but I'm going crazy on this side of the world. Just in case you managed to still care on occasion. And I don't expect you to understand. Words like "love" don't belong in your vocabulary any more than they belong in mine. I've been trying to forget, and I've managed a little, to look back and think I've been stupid. So utterly stupid.

It's some comfort, at least. Means I'll move beyond. But I still get chills when I see your face, and I can't listen to your voice any longer, or I'll go insane. Really, truly. All I want now is something red to prove to me I'm still alive and that there's pain that exists beyond this mental torture. You've done this to me, don't you realize? And I can't bring myself to tell you that I miss you, and that goddammit but I wish I didn't.

Watch what you wish for...

I wanted my mind to be blanked, to be torn up until there was nothing left of me inside. Shredded, and pieced back together like a mosaic, so I couldn't forget you. And fuck all if I didn't get my wish. It came under the name "Love" and I gave in like a fool. Four letters, right? All I need to remember. Love and Hate and Fuck you all for breathing.

I've lost myself inside what I can't recall, and it's perfect agony. I meant to tell you, to beg you, to do something, but when I see that maybe things aren't as bad for you as they are for me, I can't help it. I have to let you go somehow, in the hopes that you'll exist and thrive even while I can't. Because I'm incapable of putting myself before you, it seems. Even though once I was able to be that selfish. I've regressed, I guess.

I'm not the girl who let things happen, anymore. I'm the woman who makes the waves the wind pushes along. But I'm not happy, and I think you knew somewhere inside that I wouldn't be. I just keep wondering if that was your master plan, all along. And gods, how it hurts me.

Acute Farewell.

When you see the man
who makes me go insane,
bid him farewell for me,
for I have not the words,
nor the mind to do so.

Moving on.

It fell to me
to remember grief
and I've almost
learned to forget.

I will die.

When it comes down to it, I think I'd

most like to die with an audience, so

people could gather and mutter,

and maybe try to save me. Or,

all self-flattery aside, maybe I'll

live on in someone's story as

that girl who just fuck-flat

died.

Isolation mania.

We're only breaking rules now.

It's not like I hadn't heard the lies before -

gone to truth. But maybe the first time I felt

them and realized there were reasons.

Did she dream you, the way she

dreamed she could escape these chains?

I think she might have. Or I think you

may have convinced her she was

dreaming, which is almost the

same. Not nearly as different as

waking.

Falling Star

Is anything wrong in

the adoration of pain and

the worship of healing?

You tell me.

Is there?

And so I think I'll redo

the beginnings of making

a wish, and break the

ending so you won't have

to wait for a falling star.

Just any star. Why should

the failures get all the fun

after all?

Kiss Concrete

exhaustion rides long and hard

to east and west;

just want to

kiss concrete until

my face burns

kiss concrete

until bloodlust slackens

until the world fits

in my rearview mirror

and truck tires

*

crush the feeling

from my lungs

Pathos.

I'm real.

No...

No, you're not.

You're a figment

of my insanity.

I made you up

so I wouldn't be lonely

and

I made you fall

in love

with me.

XXX

She dreams the prison ward,

but that is reality,

and when she rebels,

she wakes to inexplicable bruises.

It was just a dream.

And I'm sorry.

But I still love you.

Cry

I wanted to cry, to douse the night's fire with my tears. Thought that maybe if I managed to cry, things would feel better, that I'd feel better. But when I'm alone, and there's nothing I can do about him, the tears won't come. I learned my lessons too well. I can't cry anymore. I wonder if he knows.

Observations.

sometimes he doesnt look comfortable in his own skin.

fading, passing feeling of sweet deliciousness...

Basically, Pepsi should market chairs.

If chairs were taboo--

I'm gonna shoot you in the face.

(Woman in a Bathroom)

It's a man thing

I used to be shy. I got over it.

(Did you really?

Because you keep missing the

soap dispenser.

Care to ask for directions?)

It was funny.

Jeremy told me last night.

Andrew - not everyone is brilliant.

Maybe it was one of those

don't get your hopes up

comments

I have a job interview tomorrow.

...not everyone

is brilliant.

Wonder what happened to that guy

You noticed his limping?

Maybe he stubbed his toe

Or he has a sore foot

Maybe he has a peg leg

He controls something on campus

that can only be controlled by him

because the key is in his peg

You know with prosthesis,

he could run faster.

Yeah, I know.

They give you springs and stuff.

They're like high tech

kangaroos.

Delicates.

How you doing, old timer?

I can't hear anything.

Did he buy - did you seal the deal?

Only one.

Keep working for me -

work harder!

Yes.

His daughter graduated.

You didn't catch the name?

Yeah, yeah.

People...

Huh?

People do the unusual.

Today Is.

Today is a Saturday.

The sixth.

The day after Guy Fawkes Day.

The Day of the Merwin Speech.

The day a couple hundred thousand babies are born... Though that might be an exaggeration.

The day poems are burned.

The day skittles are bought and someone forgets them, then finds them and has a happy surprise.

Today is the day that a lightbulb breaks.

The day a landslide didn't happen. Maybe.

The day a couple million people fell in love with somebody, even if only temporarily.

The day some Australians weren't cold.

The day some goat up in the Chilean mountains looked at some brubs... Or shrubs, really.

The day some curtains weren't beautiful enough to offset encroaching devastation in the form of mitigating depression.

And the day of a bit of other stuff.

I wouldn't be surprised if a couple billion people had an erection today, give or take a couple hundred million.

If someone, somewhere out there read a pit of prose or poetry saying that one day the corporate bureaucracy will kepp putting Viagra in the water so everybody will have a good time.

The selfsame person forgets what they read.

If there were a coupled heart breaks.

And a couple hundred suicides. Somewhere out there.

A couple... Several billion people... Who didn't commit suicide.

If a light shines on some wood paneling to mimic an underwater seafood buffet. Somebody would feel a little bit of rapture remembering days when you could get up from the table to return to the family with a bounty of oysters and cocktail sauce.

Just dig in, madly.

And be fat, and warm and happy.

If a couple hundred... Million... Stolen bathroom breaks.

Where at least seventy-five percent of the people pooped at one time or another, give or take a couple percents because not everybody poops these days... Some people have pills for that.

The day a couple... Several times, some intentional, some not so, some not so tragic, maybe a few tragic, not enough for many newspaper journals to write about.

The day a billion conversations were had, except for the very young and the very old, who either don't know how to talk or just plain lost interest.

What a day it was.

Just in air.

Dressed to the nines

He looks tired, and I know that it might be the late hour, or maybe it's the way the camera was tilted, or maybe something else. But he's tired, and I can see it across his face and in his eyes and down the creases in his vest. He's dressed to the nines. Maybe on top. But he's in jeans, still, and it's only comfortable to realize that jeans are comforting. A reminder? A problem.

Because his eyes are still dark, and they look at me from the screen the way I think they'd look in real life if I could remember, because all those memories slip away from me, too far for me to catch. They're leaving me behind like so much waste. And there's nothing, not a damn thing, I can do about it.

I'd catch up with the world if I could, but I can't, because I'm being held back by eyes that are too dark, and the fallen one who holds them. I think we had this conversation before - fallen angel sounds too pretty... But I guess angel is the right word. And fallen is the modifier that fits. Fallen from grace, if there ever was grace. A touch of grace, of goodwill.

Or maybe there was never space to fall.

I don't know.

I just don't know.

I just know it hurts, to look into your eyes and realize that I'll always lose staring contests with you, when you're only a static image on a screen.

Neil Gaiman on love.

Sometimes I hate Neil Gaiman. Other times I love him.

One-sided love.

Hey, Thaniel.