Word of the Day - Lucky

I'm lucky to be alive that's all you needed to know about that. I'm still breathing, still moving, still talking, even if I can't walk anymore. I'm still sure that I know more about the universe than you, and I know that God loves her children the same way ill-fitted lovers do - one at a time and in pieces. It's something I've learned by being lucky. I'm still alive because I'm faster than you, and maybe because you were slow so that I'd be lucky. And the building that should have fallen on me fell on you instead, so I guess man, thanks.

Word of the Day - Mythology

I took a class on Roman myth, on Greek myth and I wanted to know what it would be like to be a myth. To be so outstanding, so strange that people would open books one day and read about me, and say that science proved that I was impossible.
Like Icarus.
Like Daedalus.
I wanted to be that kind of human being, one who made wings with which to fly and leave all human cares behind, one who had the hubris to go up against the gods that human kind invented and tell them to suck it.
That I was going my own way.
That I was going to be my own god.

Word of the Day - Altar

I stand to worship, and the light falls down from the windows. Above the altar is a golden bubble, shining like a bauble that I might have sold a year or two ago to pay for this new habit. This thing called worship. It intrigues me. And the others watch me as I do. They believe in gods; I just like to act like it’s possible. Humans are so interesting. They are so very…very interesting…
I want to be a god next. I want to have my own altar where they might sacrifice oxen and burn incense.

word of the Day - Paperclips

They are sitting on the desk. Silver and gold. And there are pliers there too.
“Hey,” Jillian says. “Pass the paperclips.” She holds out a hand.
I have to hand one over to her.
She takes it and begins to bend it with the pliers. It twists until it doesn’t hold itself any more. Until it’s useless as a paper holding clip.
Until it’s some thing brilliant and beautiful, like all the other fucked up pieces of metal she’s putting together to make a neck lace with.
“Hey,” Jillian says, “thanks.”

Word of the Day - Rejection

I.
I’ve been sitting on the front porch with the knowledge that you’ve been gone for the past few weeks. It’s been that way for a while now, hasn’t it? You said you’d come out. You either have really bad luck or really good lies.
I think it’s the latter.
I think you never meant to come out to me.
You were gone away, weren’t you? Just away, far enough to for get that you promised -
Why do I bother believing any more?
You’ve made it clear.
You want no part.
But I keep putting myself in the way.





II.
It’s nice to sit in the front row.
You get called on.
And ever answer you give, is wrong.
Rejected.
In favor of the girl who sits two seats behind you, because she always has the right answer.
The benefit of sleeping with the teacher.
And having a pretty face.
Maybe a nice body.
But not an intelligent mind.
It’s just that the prof seems to be a little too distracted by her…
Features, say.
To notice that what she actually says
makes
no
fucking
sense.
I reject your logic, and substitute my own.

Burn.

When paper
catches on fire
it arches upwards
sensuously
as though the fire
were a lover
not a
demon
in disguise.

Word of the Day - Optimism

I want to keep hoping, because to lose hope is to admit that I don't know where I'm going with my life. I want to keep hope, because if I keep my chin up, I can ignore the fact that I'm walking through life without knowing what I'm putting my feet in. If I keep hoping, I can ignore the fact, maybe, that at heart I'm really just a pessimist, and thinking of everything that can go wrong. Optimism is nice, see, because sometimes, I get all excited and decide that maybe there's really something possible that I didn't see before. It's a bit of light just for me.

Word of the Day - Cannon

You're a loose cannon. You're the guy who walks down the street with a knife pulled, and you threaten people with rearranging their mentalities. You smile and your dark eyes show your soul. You can make them do that, y'know. S'what scared me, the first time I really looked into them. That I realized you were capable of blowing my word to bits with a few shards of shrapnel from the cannon that was your soul. If that's not too cheesy to say. I think it might be. You're just a dark hole, a black hole, a soul-less soul. Love you.

Word of the Day - Typewriter

I remember the way the keys clickty-clacked as I sat next to the boy with the dark hair. His name was Taylor, and he had this typewriter that he brought to all the writing meetings, in a steel box like it was a secret agent's agenda hidden away. And when he unfolded it, and everyone else pulled out laptops, he looked so strange. But we adjusted to the clickty-clack, and he was just another member - one of the old timers, like me with all my fountain pens and in the end, we all worked with the same medium in our stories: words.

Stay Awake.

I make myself
stay awake
until it hurts
and then I wonder
if this is how you feel
all the time,
like your brain
is going to mush
and your body
has given up
on you.

To Reason.

I don't believe in reason.
Not anymore than I did before,
and no longer. I'm stronger
now than I was, once upon
a time when I held out that
you knew better than
I did. And I hid myself
away inside myself, just
hoping that maybe I'd learn
the coping skills that
might let me free,
freer than a bird
has a right to be,
or a ship,
sinking on the roughest waves
of a dying sea.
I don't believe in reason,
and there's a motion
from the back of my head
telling me that I ought to
start stealing sign posts
and putting them in my front yard
to prove that I've escaped from
remembering. Someone said the thievery
might be soothing.
Maybe I said something to that effect,
only the amnesia's hitting again
and I don't even remember who you are,
let alone who I used to be.
I've given up on reason, and I don't need
to tell you why.
Just suffice it to say
that we don't get along
anymore.
I've lost count of the scorecards
that show I'm heading off
in the wrong direction -
stage left -
and yes,
I've left the stage.
Magic me onward, and I'll follow
the pages that lead me into imagination
and fictional lands
that change with the altercations
of the sand that makes time move
forward.
I told you this morning,
yesterday morning,
Friday morning,
that I don't believe in reason.
There's seasonal depression to go along
with that.
Maybe a drop or two of my own brand
of insanity, and some kisses
thrown into the mix
for flavor and (in)consistency.
I don't believe in reason
anymore.
How could I,
when reason is the reason
you wandered away from me
when maybe I most needed you
to stay closer?
Not just physically -
because I knew you couldn't,
wouldn't,
shouldn't
- but mentally.
The vacancy does much to confuse me
even as it loses me in the void
that your explanations
forget to finish.
I don't believe in reason.
Not anymore.
And I don't have a reason
not to,
but that doesn't stop it being
truer than all the lies
I've never told you.

Word of the Day - Stick

Stick to it, and stick by him, and then you’ll realize in the end that it’s really only disappoint ment where he’s con­cerned. You’ll be disappointed in the way he doesn’t wake up when you come by in the mornings, and how slow he is to act like you’re there at all. You stick with him, by him, beside him, you’re going to end up regretting it, unlike regretting the scars just thinking about him caused. It’s a problem, y’know. It’s a real problem.

Word of the Day - Boa

It’s feathered and the way it curls around my neck reminds me of the way your arms would wind around me when we were lying in bed together. The way you curled up like you were alive, almost, and you were, but I didn’t have to know that to keep breathing next to you, and appreciating how warm your skin felt, until your dad came up the stairs and spoiled the fantasy by saying, “Nathaniel, there’s someone on the line for you.” And he looked at me like he was asking, “What are you doing in bed with my son? Again.”

Fear is the most real word in the English language.

It's only been days

since we last spoke

but I think I'm fading.

I've been dreaming -

dreaming thoughts

dreaming words

dreaming places.

I've seen my mother and sister

and my roommate on occasion;

the lady who works behind the counter at Peirce

and the one who cleans up the floor;

the man who talks to the sky

and his dog.

Is it so bad

if I dream of you?

if I dream of life?

if I dream of possibility?

It's only been days

since we last spoke.

I'm not here

anymore.

hYpNoSiS.

these are not the

places you've been

looking for

how do you know?

believe me.

I know.

these are not the

places

I've been looking

for.

Exactly.

Word of the Day - Sheets

They told me that once I was between the sheets with him, I’d forget about every thing else. But that’s not true. It’s mostly because we weren’t actually between the sheets — we were on top of them and he had a hand over my mouth trying to tell me to be quiet so my little sister wouldn’t hear us, as he started to move, and he pressed a kiss to my mouth. He smiled at me. It’s always that they think things will happen. And I didn’t for get about any thing — I remembered that my sister was there; she reminded us by knocking on the door.

This is just a story.

this is just...

just nothing

just imagination

just faith

or truth

or belief

just nothing

...a story

Break.

I was born

a stained glass

window, with

lead and

gleaming frames

I will die

a stained glass

window, shattered

into pieces

on a sidewalk

And I will be

resurrected

from a stained glass

nothing to

a godless

mosaic.

Word of the Day - Stamps

It's kind of hard not to think about the way letters just seem to form themselves. I sit down to write to you twice a month, once every two weeks, on the weekends, and they start on Saturdays, those letter. Except the one for your birthday, because that was a week and a half letter. I send all the others on Wednesdays. And I sent you an elephant couple for your birthday, done in black ink, because I didn't have pencil. But I think you liked it. (You told me it's on your wall anyway.)

Word of the Day - Temper

I have a temper. I want to rip her to shreds. I want to hold her against the wall, and look into her eyes. They’re brown. I want to hold her there, and laugh in her face. Maybe press a kiss against her mouth the way we did when we were friends and she wanted to impress her boyfriend. I want to hold a knife to her throat, and laugh, softly in her ear. They’re extra sensitive, y’know. And I want to tell her what I really think of her now. Oh yes, I have a temper. But I keep it under control, because she’s most afraid of me when I’m… reigned in.

They say it's blood, sweat and tears.

I cut myself by mistake.

I bled out, dark,

and felt myself becoming weak.

I cried - and the tears ran

dark too. Contorted

body, shaking over the

desk where masterpiece

creations once were born.

Im dying. Blood and tears

that drip down - black, black

and then red - a manuscript.

Word of the Day - Possibility

It’s only a pos­si­bil­ity that I might be home soon, and that you might be there when I arrive. Possible…but I know it won’t hap­pen, because I’ll end up walk­ing from the air­port to your house — an hour and a half jour­ney all told, and I’ll be alone, in the snow, with my bags, because you won’t come pick me up even though I know you want to see me too, or so you say — and then I’ll stand on the out­side steps and ring the bell, the way I did so long ago when we first met. And it’s pos­si­ble you’ll be inside, but I’m tak­ing bets that it’s your mother who answers the door. She and I got along so well dur­ing all the times you weren’t home, and maybe she’ll offer me my spot on the futon in the liv­ing room again, and I’ll pre­tend it’s like old times, except we’re both a lit­tle older, and you won’t remem­ber me anymore.

On writing.

my body aches of expression

too much love to touch

And that which I have yet to

touch - my writing, and the next

me down. We are the dead.

we take apart the words and

inject ourselves

Play with this.

do you admit y'oure

going to die 3

ho ld on to li fe

until it a t t a c k s back,

unable to take the stranglehold

play with this

write by childh o o d

dont die

dont._die.

safety

Why today?

It couldn't happen yesterday;

I have appointments.

And tomorrow's booked solid.

Why?

You really wanna know

why?

Things add up, y'know.

Time builds tragedy.

A trajectory that leads us

away.

Not home.

Home is for the heartless.

It couldn't have happened

yesterday.

I had appointments.

And tomorrow was too late.

Questions.

What's the square root of disaster?

Fire squared could be a problem,

but flames cubed could be divine -

retribution or redemption?

Burns the imagination, until there's

nothing left to taste;

what's the flavor of imagination?

Agony and defeat, and maybe skittles

in a rainbow of possibilities.

Morgan.

I liked her before she killed me.
After...
Well, I fell in love.

On effort.

Ransoming the words from your mouth took more effort

than I ever put into my own life.

Shoplifting.

I wanted to remember, in the same way you wanted to forget.

Stealing isn't a hobby or a thrill

as much as it's second nature.

Stealing innocence, stealing kisses,

stealing time,

the same way pomegranate lip balm got stolen -

picked up and carried around

until everyone forgets...

And then walk out between the doors.

It's what you'd expect from him,

not me.

But I do it...

On occasion, except

the thievery's getting more frequent now.

I've been stealing

your breath

your smile

your right to life.

Sorry 'bout that.

Or really, I'm not.

Do you see the doubles?

It's double vision.

Splitting what we see

until it isn't.

And by we,

I mean I.

Because I see what isn't there.

Not quite,

not yet.

And believe, just begin.

I wanted to remember, in the same way you wanted to forget.

Word of the Day - Admit

I admit that maybe I’ve been thinking too much about you. I’ve been thinking about what happens in ten days when our worlds will collide again. When we will be able to see each other, speak and touch. And I’ll admit that maybe I shouldn’t have held on to you as long as I have — that maybe that was a bad idea for both of our sakes, but I’m sure you’ll admit too that it wasn’t some thing you wanted me to stop doing. You wanted me to hold on as long as I did, I’m sure. And I hope that I held on the right way — that we are still possible, if I can admit defeat, and give you up.

bright thought's bright thought

I care my freedoms and all the sword deceives poem;
I flatten my lovers and all is anger again.
(I make I create you up inside my face.)

The mirrors go building out in blasphemous and awesome,
And award-winning shard hopes in:
I hate my feeling and all the emotion loves boy.

I likeed that you wanted me into girl
And need me brazen, fucked me quite broken.
(I make I create you up inside my face.)

man haves from the woman, ice's nights hold:
hurt day and light's victory:
I hate my feeling and all the emotion loves boy.

I burned you'd take the way you help,
But I nurture breakable and I injure your delight.
(I make I create you up inside my face.)

I should have pained a comfort instead;
At least when home inures they answer back again.
I hate my feeling and all the emotion loves boy.

(I make I create you up inside my face.)

- Thirteen & Sylvia Plath

Create Your Own Madlib on LanguageIsAVirus.com

Personals.

Woman Seeking Man

willing to say love

while fucking. No

sincerity necessary.

Will kneel to

worship you back.

Woman Seeking Man

willing to indulge her

selfish nature. Bring

no expectations. All she

wants you aren't.

Woman Seeking Man

without conscience

morals or faith.

Atheism doesn't count.

She wants to forget

everything, including you.

Man Seeking Woman.

If anyone's seen her,

bring her back home.

Please.

Forgetfulness.

My body wants to know

what has been done with it,

why it has been

desecrated

defiled

destroyed.

My body wants to know

what right my mind has

to touch it

taste it

berate it

and give it away.

My body wants to know

why I do this.

I don't have an answer.

Maybe I'm just trying

not to think

about

him.

Love covers.

Love covers

a multitude of

sins.

Maybe that's why

I'll always forgive

you,

even when you

make me

cry.

Belief.

Even I don't believe in my life

anymore.

Highway.

I'm sorry love; I need the blood from under

skin, from deep within my veins. Tracing

highway lanes across my hips, watch the drips

falling, so damn red - brings memory along

like a song I can't get out of my head.

Love, sorry love - I'm addicted to blood

and ruin and true words I have heard.

Choice.

I can't shake the

feeling that you're inside,

with me, hiding inside me,

I know the day I'm going to die; an

angel sent me, told me, showed me.

Now I know the when and where but

the how's still hidden, left to me

to choose, unless this angel's message

was just a devil's ruse. But if the

choice is mine then years I have -

some time - to chance discovery of

what my death should be. The angel

came in flame - on a cloud.

eyes

I can't watch them

without being watched back

and I can't take them

so now I don't look at all.

Beautiful minds break the words...

Waking worlds

breaking worlds

walking into the darkness

of our own being

only seeing what's been invisible

thus far

and there's no way

barred for us to take.

I wanted to remake this

into a truth that's been

missing for me

since I was young,

strung up by the falsehoods of

contradictory nature

versus

nurture

loving

versus

murder.

(Maybe they're the same inside,

if you don't deny the inner dearth of lies.)

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.

To 213

You know someday we will meet,

We met across words, the way magic does

We already have...

I won’t live up to your hopes and dreams.

And I hoped for dreams

I can't recall what wasn't there

I’ll be an imperfect fantasy,

That would rewrite my imagination

I hold to my memories

That would make me almost as sad as

And change my perceptions

I couldn't bear to have you sad

Never meeting you would.

The way meeting you did.

We'll meet again. Promise?

To 118

I’m the boy of no one’s dreams,

I dreamed I was flying

I wanted to dream about you

Unless they only have nightmares.

Then I opened my eyes, and was falling

They were never nightmares

I have more faults then you know, or

I wanted the boy with no name to save me

I know you--isn't that enough?

I think I do anyway, and I have more scars

The boy with the smile that hurts my insides

I think you're perfect as you are

Than you’ve seen, the emotional sides

The one who burned himself into my skin

Even if I've never seen emotion in you

Of the scars are hard to find.

He's all my scars.

And scars are only skin deep.

10/28 Shorts

I

She was wearing pink

and green

and glasses

and she smiled

the way a fearful dog might

while begging for its life

at the hands of a violent owner.

Dumb bitch.

If she were my dog,

I'd kill her.

II

Two men walked into a lunchroom

and sat down.

Usually it's a bar.

And a joke.

This time it's real,

and there's nothing funny

about them.

III

Four math majors sat down

at a table. They talked about

parabolas and equations,

algebra and calculus,

radicals and imaginary numbers

until the English major

ran away. Then one math major

turned to another.

Have you read the newest

Harry Potter book yet?

IV

I stare at words

until they start to bleed

and I think I begin

to understand, except

when blood actually

touches the page.

Then the ink blurs.

V

A young man stands by a table,

announces that he's lost

and leaves.

The girls at the table titter.

All the boys are silent.

He left his food,

one finally says.

VI

You are a trace of nonsense, nonsensical

in a nonsense world

dedicated to dreary past times

like breathing.

No one needs that much air.

VII

Sometimes I stare at beyond the glass

windows and wish I had wings

so I could fly

instead of falling.

But those are only the days

when suicide sounds like a waste.

They're getting fewer

and farther between.

VIII

I dreamed

a professor (my favorite)

killed my roommate (who still talks to me),

then himself.

I wanted him to be alive again.

And I dreamed

a professor (still my favorite)

came to kill me (in my room)

but he didn't.

(We fucked instead.)

IX

I was a small child, once, and

I told my stories in pictures, back

then. I told my stories in pictures

done in marker on the bed sheets

until my mother made me stop. Then

I told my stories in colored pencil

on the floor until my father took

those away. Then I curled up

by the white walls until both

parents asked what I was doing.

With a crayon in each hand, I

said, Telling the truth.

X

Every moment is a reminder

to me. That being alone forever,

even with people,

is so very,

very possible.

Makes me want blood.

Maybe theirs.

Always my own.

Because then, at least...

I guess I'm not hurting anyone.

Dear Memory.

Dear Memory,

We're done. I can't take the past anymore. It colors my present in mud. There's no joy anymore. No happiness. And damn you if you dare say anything...

I want to forget happiness and true laughter. I want to lose the smiles and the fun times. I don't want to remember anything from myself. Just want to see the world from fresh eyes, unclouded by your touch.

You've stolen the details that made the past worth recall and left only a general outline, like brush strokes trying to recreate a pencil sketch.

It doesn't work.

I'd say I'm sorry, because I haven't been the most faithful, the most reliable. I haven't exactly held up my end of the bargain either, but wanting you to go is so much more than just my fault.

There's blame on you too, for not being straight with me from the first. I learned the hard way that you like to misplace things, and I thought maybe we could live with that sense of deja vu, sometimes. That I could get used to having holes where understanding used to be.

It's not that you blanked on the chem exam in my junior year, or that you keep a stranglehold on the time in kindergarten when pants were uncool.

It's got more to do with recent events. April, for example. Let's talk about April, and how you won't let it go. Every time I sit down to write, April is the first memory you supply for inspiration. Every time I let myself relax a little, wander a little - April.

It's not that you're holding onto a failure - it's that you don't know when to give it up. You poke and prod and examine April until I can't focus on what I'm doing. Until I'm lost inside the reincarnated events.

April.

What a fucking joke.

I might even have been able to live with that, to forgive you if you managed to cling with such desperation to this summer. May, June, July and August are failures of clarity, and that's your fault. The moments I'd rather drown in are whispers, if that, and you're killing me every time I ask for a sample of the past. Always out of stock, and you'll never oder more.

Sometimes it's enough to make me want to hurt you. I've learned how. I know how to open the knives, now. J taught me how to kill with them. I'm still a student to Death.

You won't find me writing any breakup letters to her. She and I understand each other - she does what's expected of her. And she's not mine, either.

It's not an affair, and hell if I'm leaving you for someone. No. I'm leaving you for what you are, and what you've done (or failed to do).

I needed you, once upon a time, I thought. But fuck that now. Unless you've got the guts to make it up and try one more time, we're done.

(And even if you do, we still are. Just on a more friendly note. Possibilities, y'know?)

It's like this.

I can't recall

Ever wanting to

lose as much

as I do

with you.

this is just a story

I want to tell you a story, about a boy who sits in the grass in front of a brown house, in the green grass, with purple burns on his pale arms, and warm smile on a cold face framed by blond hair and blue sky. This is a boy who wants to know things, and I don’t always know why he wants to know, or why he feels he needs to know, but he does, and it's refreshing, it's sad, it's too many things to accept so I have to begin to deny them. Pretend I don't know why. Just accept as it, end of story. I can't tell this story. I need someone else to do it, I guess.

Lifetime Shorts.

I
They sat in health class laughing nervously when the topic of human sexuality arose. No one even stopped to consider the power for destruction contained between Tab and Slot. These were just diagrams and little paper models that teenagers could imitate better with their own hands. Paper leaves cuts when attempting orgasm. Maybe the girl curled up in the front row could explain it, stretched out across her binder, head down and eyes shut until the teacher poked her awake for an answer she never got wrong. The best birth control is still creativity, if you can justify it.


II

But that's still nothing like coming home to do laundry and picking up your daughter's clothing to realize there's still blood on the inside of all the used bras and not daring to ask why. Some things a parent is better off not knowing, especially if it's not life threatening. Breasts are just close to the heart; not like she'd bleed out from there anyway. Besides... The last time you tried to talk to her about anything was when she was eight and still rooming with her sister upstairs, and you hit her. And she hit back, with a whispered promise to kill you if you dared touch her again. Even now, when she's almost graduated from high school, you still ask permission to give hugs. She rolls her eyes and says nothing, and when you lean in to touch her, you're both stiff as cardboard because you wonder if noncommittal silence is the same as saying no.

III
I suppose I'd be jealous too, if I were you, but that's only because you're on the football team and you can't imagine being overshadowed yet again. Bad enough that in three years your high school will celebrate it's thirtieth anniversary of losing the homecoming game. Maybe worse that the other team will make a delicious cake to congratulate you. Definitely worse that in the middle of gym class you landed on the wrong side of the handball game and an upstart freshman gave you a black eye when she went after the ball in the bleachers. Definitely worse that your coach saw the whole thing and told your team and brought your captaincy up for question. The worst now that she's got posters with her name in the hallway reading, "Dear Football Team: At least we can beat Peru. Love, the swim team." I bet that burns.


IV
You'd probably remember it better if there hadn't been three of you. Four, if you remember she existed, and that little black notebook she pulled out whenever something went wrong. You thought about stealing it and reading all the entries aloud over campfire to the other girl scouts, but she always kept the damn thing with her, and it wasn't worth the trouble to get it. Just taunt another thirteen year old about her obsession with one of the college-age camp counselors; a lifeguard named Star. "You must love her," you said once. She got a strange look in her eyes, then, and smiled, that smile that scared the shit out of you and your two friends if any of you were alone. "You like girls. You're sick." She laughed, but that look still didn't leave her eyes. That night she was driven to the hospital, unconscious concussion. You weren't there, but I saw her, rocking on the edge of the bunk bed, murmuring that this would hurt. Two eight year old scout-lings caught her; otherwise there'd have been no use for an ambulance.


V
Standing in front of class every day is hard enough; try it for three hours. That's why you put breaks into the schedule. One break and cookies at the one and half hour mark. The cookies are as contagious as the creative spark running through the front quarter of the classroom. It started out at one desk and spread until there were too many arts projects going on to properly call it a mythology class. She started it with knitting, then moved to cross stitch. You sent her an email, hoping she would get the hint. Next Monday, she thanked you for the link to mythological patterns. Maybe I should have warned you; she doesn't do subtle.

Your fault.

You made it happen, and I'm so sorry. So, so, so sorry. I didn't mean to...but you made me. I didn't want to kill you.

Sin and Shame.

I dreamed that you were inside me. That things were the way they had been. We were together, and we were in a white house, and there were other people there, but you were there, too, and that was all that was important. That you could touch me, and that I could feel you, and that you would still mold your body with mine.

It felt like sin to wake up, and like shame to realize that I still want you. Please...

Inner self.

This world is small enough that I know you inexcusably well. Better than your last lover, or your current one:

I know what makes your skin shake, and those words aren't it; soft kisses annoy you, but she doesn't know that; dry wits get your humor while wet ones fail; and maybe they know about your views of redemption and hell, but was murder ever pillow talk for one of them?

Forgive the smallness of a small world. I know you better than you know yourself. But maybe only partly, and inside, not out. Because I can make you cry, but the tears don't fall; they just fill your words. Threaten to break.

You know.

Reason being...

I did it for the same reason I do everything--to hurt someone. Just turns out that this time, I was hurting myself. Funny how that works, isn't it?

Mentality Shorts.

I.

It was only a song and there existed no reason for that to hold her. It was only a song, he said, and she agreed. Only a song, she said, but when they walked away together, his hand held hers, and her mind held only the music.

II.

I wanted to taste blood but it couldn't be my own. It had to be someone else's blood. I knew my own too well. My blood was like oil. My blood was disgusting. I wanted to taste blood. Real blood. And I knew who to find it in. Her name was Amy.

It only hurts when your eyes are open.

You can see the carpet, and you can see your hands in front of you. It's not a dream, and it's not lucid, because then you'd be in control. Instead, you can see your hands, but they clench and unclench without your approval. You move and your elbows hurt from digging into the carpet, but you're not doing it. You only feel it when your eyes are open.

If you close your eyes, it doesn't hurt anymore. You can't see your face in the mirror, and you can't see the way your hair falls down. It's getting longer now. You'll need to cut it soon. But even those little thoughts are still there, still thoughts and they go away entirely if you close your eyes. Then it doesn't hurt anymore.

You can't feel anything if your eyes are shut.

He never does anything with the lights off, but you never ask him to. You'd love to. You want to. The lights are too damn bright, too damn illuminating of everything that's wrong with you. You want to be able to just lay there, and let him do what he needs to. But he keeps wanting more. He tries to kiss you, and your mouth opens, but your tongue feels like lead, and it won't move. You let his tongue into your mouth, and the taste is sweet, but too much so, like old apples.

When you're on your stomach, the carpet rubs against your skin with every jerk forward. You'll burn. Your hands are trying to hold onto the rug. He mistakes it for passion. You're just trying not to think. You are trying to forget what you do to your body, what you do with your body.

Right before he cums, he kisses your back.

But your eyes are closed, and you're somewhere far, far away, where unfaithfulness to yourself can't hurt you. You're hidden, somewhere else. Behind closed lids is your sanctuary.

Disclaimer.

Do you swear to tell the truth,

the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth,

so help you god?

I swear not to.

How, Why, What, When, Where. Who?

This is what we didn't realize when we were young:

how people fall
how people see us
how people fail

This is what we didn't question when we were young:

why people love
why people hate
why people are

This is what we didn't know when we were young:

what people needed
what people thought
what people created

These were the times we didn't get when we were young:

when people yelled
when people left
when people died

These were the things we wanted to know when we were young:

where people went
where people hurt
where people came from

These were the things we couldn't know when we were young:

who people chose
who people cheated
who people were

Q & A

Someone asked me what I write about.

(That's a lie I wish were true.)

I had to think.

(If anyone ever did ask, I would have to.)

Everything, I said.

(But that's a lie I don't wish were true.)

Everything, she said.

(In a dream world, I can pick; it was a she.)

Everything, I said.

(I guess I know what perjury looks like.)

She walked away laughing.

(Even my dreams don't always agree with me.)

All right, I said. So maybe I write about nothing.

(She didn't come back.)

Afterglow.

After we fuck, I can't wait until he leaves so I can get his smell off me. My body likes the way it feels - the afterglow might be there, even. I just can't take it in my head. He doesn't smell right, doesn't feel right, doesn't do anything for me except make me nauseous.

I fuck because it reminds me I'm human. Because it's the one way I can still hurt myself without blood. Because it's an addiction to pain inside that I won't give up. But no one hurts the right way. They aren't violent the right way.

It's all make believe, let's pretend. No one actually knows what to do.

They don't get that there might be something there.

Then again, maybe they get off fucking a girl who just lays there, eyes closed and silent. There are a lot of necrophiliacs around campus, then.

I miss you.

Caged shorts.

Written in the style of John Cage.

1

I was walking down a riverbed in the middle of a forest. It hadn't rained in days and the riverbed was empty except for rocks and a pair of boys pretending to drown. The tall one was wearing jeans; the short one, khaki shorts.

"Let me go!" Shorts said. He was standing on the river bed, reaching into the empty air.

"No," Jeans said. He held Shorts' sleeve.

"But I have to save him," Shorts said.

"You'll die," Jeans said. "Would he have wanted you to die for him?"

"Yes!" Shorts said.

2

The fan blew smoke in my face while the chair hugged my body and the boy over me slowly pressed the air from my lungs.

Pot smells like incense, at first. Then it starts to smell like dreams. Then poison.

"Are you okay?" the boy on me asked.

I couldn't breathe, but there wasn't enough air for me to say so. Eddie Izzard's screen-time audience laughed on the TV. Fuzz and Sophia wouldn't look at me. Thaniel's fingers touched my throat. I began to breathe again.

He said everything would be okay, but his breath was like incense, and his eyes were all pupil.

3

We sat on the pier watching the schoolchildren wander on the grass. Then teachers showed up, and they ushered the children out onto the pier. Thaniel pulled out a knife and played with it.

A blue-eyed girl in pigtails watched.

Thaniel smiled at her. She smiled back.

The teacher saw and pulled the girl away. She looked back over her shoulder to wave.

Thaniel waved back. To me, he said, "She could have been dead by now." He put the knife away.

"Yeah," I said. "I know."

4

We stood on the pier watching two guys share a cigar and I felt Thaniel holding back. "Go ahead," I said. He looked at me, then at his friends. He took a drag off the offered cigar. His eyes closed and he blew rings of smoke.

John said, "She texted me again."

Thaniel handed over the cigar. "What'd she say?"

Jay took the cigar.

"Three little words," John said.

Thaniel whistled. "Bitch," he said.

John didn't say anything. Jay puffed on the cigar and handed it off. "That one new?" he asked.

Thaniel put an arm around my waist. "Enough," he said.

5

When it started raining, I wasn't ready to go back inside. I wanted to stay outside in the rain. Puddles reflect, but they aren't as accusatory as mirrors. The rain fell on my head, and my hair fell wet around my face. I walked by his side and our hands were slick.

"I already have plans," I said. "Elizabeth and Will."

"Oh?" he asked.

"Yes," I said. "Elizabeth's the more outgoing of the two. Will's kind of shy."

"You sound prepared," he said.

I said I was, and he let the topic drop. I didn't bring it up again. I walked along in the darkness, in the rain. His hand worked its way out of mine, but he put an arm around my shoulder. His armpit was superheated. His arm was just warm.

6

I was walking in the mall when I texted the boy in the hat to ask him if he minded being used. It took him a while to get back to me. By then, I wasn't as depressed. But when he said he didn't mind and asked
why, I told him what I had meant to tell him earlier. I was feeling down, and needed to hear someone - anyone - say they loved me, even if it wasn't true.
He said he loved me.
He never stopped.

7

The boy in the hat was sitting next to me at the conference while the poetry slam was going on. He commented about how some people presented and how others didn't, and he approved of some readers while not of others. I listened to his commentary, agreed with some but not with others, I disagreed out loud when I had to, and told him to shut up when necessary. He was annoyingly self-assured. I gave him my phone, the way I wanted to with Dan, and told him to give me his number.
He gave me his name.
Thaniel.

8

While we wandered around the book store, I mentioned Thaniel to Tom. Like a good older brother, Tom's hackles went up at once. He wanted to know just about everything, from who and where to when and how. But not why. I think he saw why in everything else.

I just wanted to flirt a bit, get used to having someone interested in me, again. I hadn't had anyone interested that way since my last boyfriend. And Tom was too good a soul to be anything but concerned for my well being.

I told him, sort of off-handedly, that I was thinking about fucking this kid I'd met at the writer's conference.

Tom wanted to know everything. And when the total of people Thaniel had slept with was beyond counting, Tom wanted to keep me away. Even more so when mentions of drugs and alcohol came into the mix. Tom was straight edged, almost more of a ruler than a human being. He was in love with the law.

For a time, I guess I was too, though, so I could forgive him. I could forgive myself. It's just a phase; at one point, Thaniel was in love with law too. So it all works out. No full blooded delinquent among us.

9

I still don't know how to answer the questions that come up from my young swimmers who are too innocent to realize that sometimes people hurt themselves on purpose. Injury to them is something accidental. Injury is when you fall off your bike or trip over the sidewalk and scrape your knees. Injury is breaking your fall on your palms and getting rocks wedged into tears in the skin. Injury is something that goes away, eventually.

And the scars from injuries are small, and don't have shapes.

Except mine do, and I don't try to explain to anyone that these were done on purpose, because they don't take kindly to the realization that sometimes it's something beautiful, and everyone who sees the badge of purple across my leg still asks how I bruised it. I still lie, too, and tell them I fell down the stairs and it was a bad fall but I'll be okay eventually. It's strange how many of them still believe me, and I laugh on the inside, except I'm not really laughing because I don't want them to believe me.

Too many people believe the lies I carve with my lips.

I want someone to look at me and tell me I'm lying.

10

We sat on the pier, and this time we were alone. He smoked a cigarillo—green apple flavor. The temptation to ask for a drag was strong. Instead I asked him for a favor. He had a collection on his skin and I wanted to begin one of my own.

He held my hand right before and right after, but the during I can't recall. He pressed the end of the cigarillo into my palm until the smell of burned skin reached my nose. Then he lifted me off his lap and said I passed out. He might have kissed me. My palm hurt.

We walked together and a blister raised over my burn. I ripped it open; let the juices drain. Burns were more fun than cuts, I told him. He only laughed, and his shirt sleeves didn't disagree. They were pulled low to hide his arms until he healed. We were both wrecks, healing on at our own pace.

I think I said I love you to him.

One last time, a dozen times.

Each time I called the last time.

I think we both knew it wasn't. Not until I was in college again, and my palm was healed, and then I stopped talking to him. People keep asking. He's just imagination, I tell them. I invented him, the same way I invented my summer.

What about your palm, they ask.

What about it?

Isn't it burned, they ask.

Look close, I tell them. All the lines are there; there is no injury, and never was.

3:17 am

I want to look into your eyes until I no longer recognize the man inside. I want to stare into your soul until I forget that I used to know who it was, in there. I want to be torn up until I forget what it was to be whole, and then eventually just forget entirely.

Because I still can't bear the thought that maybe I've lost you to another world. That'd be like losing myself, since I don't exist the same way anymore.

Repondre A: Homme de Lunar.

I've seen these lies break stronger men than you,

like pretense could ever save you;

Let your guard down and me inside.

I'm stronger than you'll ever be.

10.4.2010

You were my first taste of sky.

I never knew blue could be so addictive.

Photos.

I've walked these streets so many times in person that to see them in photos makes it seem like they were just dreams. Like my memories are falling apart again, and that I can't really reach all the way there. Like there's something just beyond, and that hurts. S'why I don't go through photo albums anymore. That's why I can't touch people, anymore.

Article.

I just felt the need to put this article out for people to possibly stumble across. It's worthwhile, and short.

What You Do Is Amazing

Now.

Like a poem

my life was never finished

only abandoned

And honestly...

I don't know why I'm here. If it's to write truth or lies. If I'm supposed to make believe or make fun.

If possibilities end at the door out in the garden.

If truth is only ever possible when everything is documented, does that make every word I write a lie?

If I hadn't seen her in days, only to see her in skirts walking out of the dining hall, is that a sign? Or a reminder?

If another week has run it's course am I closer to resolution or absolution?

If I can hear his voice, but I dream about someone else, does that make me a traitor to my country or myself?

If I could really be anyone for an entire day, would I want to be dead? Or am I just saying that?

And if I meant it, could I come back?

If time was running out, would I go to M and talk to her, or would I opt to take a plan into Canada and say goodbye?

I can write it without crying. I can see H&G, L&N, K&W, M&T--all pairs without sadness. Only minor aches and pain, and by now those have physical explanations.

Time is running out and I don't have the world down as well as I ought to. My reading for Tuesday will be done before Monday, but there's an emptiness inside asking if I'm really living or just attempting to exist. I want to be elsewhere. I want to be elsewhere. To learn something different. Something new.

He told me to shake up life when it got stale. I've always been afraid to. I let other make the waves when I've already got my sea legs. But I guess I am a swimmer, and jumping headfirst into waves can't kill me.

Only I can do that, when the water's a metaphor for thought.

Today I warned the world that only true delinquents always dress nicely. That the man in the top hat and bow tie is more likely to walk out of the store with an extra knife. That maybe this child wants to know a bit more about the wild side, so she changes into a gentle-looking soul and cusses out the world while holding a knife to its throat.

I'm my only savior, and I'm my only danger. I just need to remember it. Appreciate it. Learn it. Love it, even.

But that's a maybe. Because maybe love is too touch a pill to swallow right now. Take people one at a time, slow ways mentally.

Tiny steps, baby steps, towards something new. The day starts here.

Face it.

It only aches occasionally. But then it's like dying a little more. And I wonder...

I still miss you.

I find traces

hidden across the shards

of the web,

across the powerful notion

of nationality

pride, maybe values.

With you inside, hiding,

in that way you have

like you'll get a laugh

by bending rules

until I break.

And maybe I've learned to miss you

or maybe its only an idea now

just trying out new wings.

Juxtapose what sings

over the dying screams.

But maybe.

I find faces

in these places and

reconcile just for a while

within the smiling

aces -

only a short day's graces

bend and break

nor give nor take this

facade away

not now, never today.

Only tomorrow,

the way we promised to

return to the past

broken moments

maybe meant something

to someone

anyone

no one

I'd believe again, but I'm me again,

too far away to be seen again

if ever

if only ever

belief comes from never knowing

only holding

only hoping the present

won't break into

mosaics.

Like the bits and pieces I

knew from when sky dyed

blue-grey-green - the sheen

of sun over the taste of lies

might as well be

the truth, or both of us

will die.

Swiftly, maybe, gently, save me.

Seeking Asylum.

It was all in the way they looked at me. From behind bars, as if those bars could keep them safe. Or keep me safe. as though padded walls and white - brilliant, blazing, god damned white - could prevent my mind from visiting corners in the shadows.

Shadows are everywhere. Everwhere, neverwhere we expect -

They came and stood, twittering like mad birds outside until their voices blended into the surrounding air. Until they were not there.

The hallways were bare, and all the bars were gone. Unless I tried to reach through. Then the bars came back, clamped down, like the angry jaws of some forgotten man eating-beast.

Sirens sounded, then, and men in white - so much fucking white! - came. They held me against the white walls. Shined white light in my eyes. Took notes on white paper clipped to a white clipboard with a white pen and they stake of paleness and death. Mental decay.

"Easy there," one man in white said to me. "Easy," as he took his hands off my throat and the padded floor stopped holding me when the man kneeling on my back got off. And the floor gave me my breath again.

(("You keep that one here much longer," he said, "and things'll go rough."

"What d'you mean?"

"See that?" He pointed. "People like that aren't meant for places like this. Suffocating in open air. Y'hear the raving at nights. Always the same - 'White, white - goddamn white!' I'm telling ya...it'd kill to keep 'em here. ))

I heard voices but they were far off, and the walls had eyes, so the voices were no longer important. Only the eyes - red and blue. Rage and violence.

(("This place isn't natural for someone like that," he said.

"So what? Set them free on the streets? Are you crazy?"

He shook his head. "No. But they're not either."))

Fifth floor.

And I'm alone still.

Again.

But I can hear the screams down below. A few floors down.

And if I close my eyes I can trace them.

Like that high pitched one a few moments back was from third floor, cell six. She's been here for two years. She's a youngster. Barely begun.

They move you up with each passing bit of time, each human being who passes over. Gives up. Goes under.

Those are the lucky ones.

You know when they go out because you can hear them start to sing, and it's fucking eerie. Like an opera singer when whale, or something with a bit of wolf howl thrown in for flavor.

To explain why they always sing more on a full moon.

And after a month or so, then they stop singing.

And we never hear them again.

But the screams on third are softer now, and there's a bottle of isopropyl on hand for all your painful needs.

Cuts, scrapes, burns. Cleaning, waking up, getting sick. Burning shit.

Except the only way to bleed is to claw through your own skin, and they try to keep us from being able. Smooth walls. Smooth enough to go mad against, and the only other flammable substance is thought. Everything else just seems to wait, laughing.

But as torture poured into sinuses, it does the trick. It hurts, and it's impossible to sleep through.

But I wish there were more matches. It feels so wrong not to have the graze of fire on my skin.

Like a bit of me has died. They tell us the need will go away. We know it doesn't. That they don't know what they're talking about.

That these men in pale green and alien suits have never known the touch of a knife, or match. Have never dreamed what release it brings.

Have never -

Singing.

It's coming from the seventh floor. May souls rest in peace, in a hell less hellish than this one.

And as for me,

I'm sleeping now.

Don't much care when,

Don't much care how.

And when I wake

I'll sing a tune

And laugh and play

My own soul's doom.

Beyond.

Mayhap we've reached beyond our boundaries into what borders on riotous insanity. And perchance we'll never see it again, but maybe we will...maybe we will.

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Let's play a game of let's pretend. Let's pretend - let's pretend that these words are etched on stone, engraved, until they cannot be forgot. Stuck, written, placed in minds and memories. Think a thing and design it in words. Therein lies the beginning of remembering, once one no longer needs to remember.

In learning we hear, and we take. In writing we understand, and we give. Memory, spun from the failure of ink and wood pulp, placed by the individual, built for the masses, even if intended for individual alone. Once in writing a thing may not be forgotten, memory erased by time. Once in writing, this book is open the world to know.

The inconsequentials, the stories. The written word, left unheard and held by those whose voices remain silenced but for their own version of a sign language, thrown across continents and time, a span only breached by the exceptional. And now we're vanishing again. Into the summer mist. Fog. Jealousy.

Have you been jealous before? This knowledge, a knowing of feelings... I never wanted jealousy.

He's here.

I keep touching what his mind would say, and I wonder if he's still alive, because I don't hear the words much anymore. I don't hear much of anything anymore. Just a faint hum somewhere off in a distance that I know I'll never reach, since it keeps growing with every step I take. I will never be close enough to rescue my present, and the future is only words on a page. The past is what might be solid, if everyone else could remmeber. And I still have the makings of the best story never told.

Because there are pieces that I can never let go, and those pieces are too dear to try. I hold them, and I hurt them, and eventually I'll die bleeding from them. It's the way I built my other sides, and the way I heard voices from the time when I was young enough to know better. But I'm not the only one who hears the voices, and I won't be the only one to need rescuing from them. They bite, you know.

Sometimes hard, sometimes not. But teeth are teeth, and memories are dull as protection.

Collective Unconscious

It's only a touch away from the familiar, a bit out of the ordinary, slightly removed from what we haven't yet known.

And if it's only waiting...

We passed the End of the Earth sale on the way here.

Maybe things are just beginning.

And maybe...

In mid capture of conversation, we find the calls that draw on memory and melody.

And possibility.

They say it's general holocaust - that everyone is dying.

That it's anything you can imagine.

So bad the Italian music got involved and the movie store down on West Lane.

But even though it's a bullshit excuse, it's still why the balis are banned. And not just in Ohio.

He was in Chicago for eight years.

So that...that became home.

It's only dark intelligence hidden under wanna-be curly hair.

Or even wanna-be wavy.

Sullen eyes and a high voice, the way I imagined.

Do you need to remember?

A blossoming music career.

Disguised as something much more.

Exotic, but it's a carrot.

I had a diet coke, but I don't know where the the glass went!

Silent with a smile and pity in blue eyes.

My wife worked down in LA and I had a job at six flags...

Were you the bad guy or the good guy?

I was...the...rogue-ish.

The morally questionable.

Just recalls the thin boy with no smile and a beautiful voice, who knew that Broadway was a dream he'd been reaching for his whole life...a dream just out of reach.

Did you ever see Mickey Mouse being led out in handcuffs?

The feet were big enough that they caught the baby?

Lewis?

When do these parking lots ever end?

I dunno Clark.

America's one big parking lot.

Not simple Alice, though.

She doesn't know what sight train is.

Simple Al?

She wouldn't have much to say.

Lean forward over the table, brush nose, lean left to adjust pocket. Her right hand up to her ear. He smiles and looks up. She plays with her hair. He sits up, hands to lap, wipes mouth, leans forward. She withdraws, scratches right shoulder, holding cup, speaks and drinks. Head tilt, watches waiter - sees him go by, glances down. Subtle. Mirror body language - heads tilt.

She's in jeans, flip flops, grey tank and black bra, straps showing. Dark hair, faint purple overlay.

Him in yellow, but dull with green writing: Surf and Turf. Watch on left hand, a broken smile, far back hair and he drinks tea.

Her right foot keeps shaking and she tries tea - daintily.

He smiles and looks down, leans in.

She's not smiling anymore. She has a ring on her right hand, second finger - index. And gold earrings, a scar on her right arm, just above/across the elbow. She's fidgeting.

Waiters have black pants, white shirts, red - bright - ties and apron skirt like things. And no one notices because they're all the same.

All the same.

Ties in front with two pockets and black book stays in the left one. Unless it's the right and a pen next to it.

It's true.

Every time he takes a breath of air he exhales dollar bills.

I want to make a difference in a child's life.

A creepy old man's tshirt.

Your rent is collecting souls.

Bring them to us.

We will kill them.

It's always the bright ones.

No one ever laments, "Oh, and she was so stupid.

So little potential."