Words

2010-10-12T11:23:00.001-04:00

“Fur where there was no fur before”

“So, just you and the dog then?” the real estate agent asked.
Jim replied, “Yes, is that some sort of problem?” all the while thinking that if it was going to be his house; he could certainly have a dog. “Is there some sort of neighborhood association thing?” He had been planning to buy a few chickens, a childhood dream realized, and didn’t want to get on anyone’s bad side. Small towns can be the best towns or the worst towns, but it’s all in how you handle the residents.
A small, tight smile from the agent, “No, no problem. People here don’t normally keep dogs.” This said without looking Jim directly in the eye, as if he couldn’t for some reason.
“Hey, thanks for getting me a lower price on this place. I know it’s worth a lot more.”
The agent mumbles a thank you and quickly drives off, not bothering to remove the “For Sale” sign in the yard.
Jim sighed and began the slow and weary business of unpacking a life.
The first weeks were smooth and quiet. Jim had time to reflect back on them and realized that there had been a rhythm and tranquility he had never known. There also had been signs, but he had willfully ignored them. It’s startling sometimes what we refuse to see in our desire to be happy.
Jim wondered why the house was so cheap when he bought it. A two-story, A-frame house in perfect condition, sitting on a 12-acre lot. It was close enough to the town that he could ride his bike, but far enough away that he knew he would be able to write uninterrupted for long stretches. He had always been a rather solitary fellow, preferring even as a child to stay inside and talk to his stuffed animals. He would hear the other children outside and wonder about their play, but he was content. Jim had spent most of his life being content. He thought it was the kind of life that would go simply, and easily, with no great highs or lows. That was true, until he moved to Millford. It was such a picturesque town. It had a meandering river that ran through the center of town, past the old mill that had given the town its name. Jim really thought he would like it here. He really thought it was the place where he would grow old.
There was a small general store where townsfolk congregated, sighing and rocking in chairs on the porch. He went the day he signed the final papers for the house, ostensibly to purchase a few odds and ends. The thing about small towns is, everyone knows everyone else. Jim thought he could wait until the gossip about his arrival had done its work, creating a furor. Instead he decided to pretend to be the adult his body had become and go introduce himself.
The eldest of the men sitting on the porch smiled as he approached.
"Hi. I'm..." Jim started to say.
"Jim Brown," the man finished, "Bought the old McCready place."
"Paid too much too," muttered the man sitting to his right.
"Yes. I did." Jim replied, giving the other old guy a sidelong glance that he hope implied some of his discomfort and displeasure, but only succeeded in making him look a bit cross-eyed.
The oldest man look at him and said, "You seen any rabbits yet?"
Jim looked at him puzzled and said “A few, why?”
“They been acting funny?” the first old man asked, while his counterpart slowed the rocking of his chair to lean in intently and listen.
“I don’t think so,” said Jim. “I’m a city boy though. I’m not certain I know how rabbits are supposed to act.”
The first man nodded at this. The second spat a stream of tobacco across Jim’s shoes, nearly hitting them before landing neatly in the spittoon just to Jim’s right. He said, nodding to Jim’s dog, “Just keep an eye on him, you hear?”
Jim smiled, quite puzzled at this exchange and nodded once, twice and then went inside to do a little shopping so no one would think saying hello had been his main intention.
Talking to others in his neighborhood, though not on his street, all the houses surrounding him were deserted, curious in its own right, Jim would hear an astoundingly similar refrain in the days and weeks to come. He would ask questions and never seem to get answers. He assumed it was politeness, or reticence at talking to an “outsider,” but after a while he was less and less certain.
"The McCready place, huh? You heard about the rabbits?"
"Do they tear up the gardens?”
"No, no, the gardens are fine. My wife has a beautiful vegetable plot. I'll have her cook you some of her famous ratatouille"
“Sounds delicious.”
Jim has time to think about all the clues, as he’s crouched down in the closet. He knows it won’t be long now, but he’s still trying to think of some avenue of rescue. He remembers when the chickens were killed. He had thought it attributable to weasels, a fox, or another carnivorous creature. The property abutted a field on one side and a copse of trees on the other that extended behind the house. It was reasonable to assume it was a small, hungry animal, living in a burrow somewhere. The thing Jim had not seen, had tried not to see, was that the chickens had appeared more mutilated than eaten. Almost as if it had been done for the sport and not the food. The carnage was unbelievable, an explosion of blood and feathers. The telltale signal, what he should have noticed and didn’t, the deep-set tooth marks in the wood.
Now it is too late, now he wants blood. At least, Jim thinks it’s a he. Could be a girl. Damn rabbits all look the same. He sits there, paws up, ears back, scenting the air. He’s all soft brown fur and big black eyes like straight out of a storybook. Little pink nose twitching in that curious way only rabbits have. He scented Jim’s blood. Jim had nicked himself shaving that one spot on his neck, just above and to the left of his adam’s apple, always tricky in the best of circumstances. He had been spooked by a knock at the door and the razor had jumped just a little, just enough to draw blood. It was the rabbit that knocked. Damned if Jim knew how. Curled up his paw and rapped on it maybe, like he’d just arrived from Wonderland late for tea. Jim stood in shock, one hand on the door knob, one hand still pressing the white square of tissue to his throat, blooming red flowers filling in the negative space. The screen door with its delicate latch seems like such a thin thing. Jim had never thought about how thin before. It was all that was between him and the beast.
A white flutter caught at the corner of Jim’s eye, made him look out into the yard instead of the apparition at his door. It was a cottontail. Little bits of Easter rhymes were competing with the sound of blood pounding in his ears. “I’ve got to get a grip on myself.” The yard is slowly filling. There’s one by the hedge, two more near the ditch, another creeping from underneath the porch. Jim makes a move to shut the door and the rabbit there cocks his head, one beady eye focusing directly on Jim’s. Jim has just enough time to think, “oh shit” before the rabbit lunges, powerful legs launching him into the air and directly at Jim’s throat. Thank god for that screen. Jim falls back, stumbling over himself, and landing hard on his butt. There will be a bruise there the size of a watermelon, if he lives long enough for it to form. At the moment he isn’t thinking about bruises. He is on his hands and knees, scrabbling to gain purchase and get himself upright to run. The rabbit had banged against the screen, claws catching briefly before falling back to the porch. Now Jim could see with mounting horror that the rabbit was using his powerful jaws to gnaw a hole, partly through the screen but also partly through the doorframe. Jim has gained his feet and runs toward the back door and his car. He stops suddenly, skidding on the area rug he’d just bought at the antique mall last weekend. There is a rabbit at the back door, no, two. He has just a moment to register this before their small bodies begin slamming into the glass.
Jim checks his movement and runs upstairs. He has one chance, to get to the attic and call for help. He takes the stairs two at a time, falling again at the top and bruising his knee this time. Terror makes us clumsy in a way that nothing else can. Jim lunges toward his bedroom, toward the closet and the ladder to the attic. He manages to slam the closet door behind him just as he notices brown ears appear at the top of the stairs. “Why didn’t I close the bedroom door?” he thinks, just as he reaches the ladder to the attic. He climbs rapidly, wheezy and full of adrenaline from his flight. He gets to the top and hastily pulls the ladder up after him. He fishes the phone from his pocket and dials 9-1-1. As he listens to the phone ring, and ring again, he hears another noise. It is the rabbits and they are coming up the walls.

2010-10-12T11:22:00.000-04:00

She met him on a Tuesday and the world stopped. By the time it started spinning again, she was lost, tossed into an unknown world by the force of his being.

They were outside of her favorite coffee shop, she, standing, and he, sitting with a mutual acquaintance. It was spring and the light was affecting her in strange ways. It made her feel freer, more open, less afraid. They said hello and their eyes met. They were the same color, a green that’s almost blue. She was startled, thunderstruck. He smiled and looked away first, disinterested, or playing the part.

She told him everything. She spilled all of her secrets, like an overflowing bucket. She couldn’t empty herself quickly enough. She felt like a sinking ship in a storm, desperately throwing rainwater over the side, knowing she would drown.

There were many different types of smiles. The closed-mouth, upturned corners given to strangers. The stoic, straight-line head nod to acquaintances across a room, in the same aisle at the store, at a show. The fake, all tooth, wide grin in photographs, showing its falsehood by the lack of any corresponding emotion in the eyes, by its too-wide, too-toothy nature. The genuine smile, given to lovers and close friends, only seen in completely unguarded moments. It was characterized by its crookedness and the sparkle radiating from every line in her face. She hated that smile. She loathed its imbalance and perceived imperfections. It was the smile for which she was loved, adored, and she hated that too.

They crawled beneath the covers, drunk from the wine and the closeness of each other’s bodies. She tucked the covers under her toes and the edges of her shoulders and pulled her legs in close, far from the corners of the bed. He smiled at this and asked her why she did such a thing. It was summer. It wasn’t cold. She smiled, half on her side, half on her back, staring at the ceiling. “It’s from when I was young,” she shrugged, “a bad habit I had of pretending I could make myself be ok.” He said, “I don’t understand.” She looked at him and half-smiled. “You know, when you are young, when the bed was safety and everything else was a dangerous land, when there were monsters, in the closets and under the beds. If you were tucked in, if you were far from the corners, you were safe. Don’t you remember?” He gathered her in his arms and said, “Now, you’re safe. You don’t need the blankets. No corners can harm you.”

2010-10-12T11:20:00.003-04:00

Misunderestimated
Mary met Elroy at a club. He was charming and talkative. He wore a tie. Mary spotted him while he was talking to a few other girls. She decided to be bold. “Let’s go,” she said, grabbing his hand. He was mid-conversation with a very startled looking blonde, but he followed Mary willingly enough. She was pretty in the way that few girls her age are pretty. There was maturity about her features that implied a certain kind of wisdom, without the travesty of age. Mary led him out onto the dance floor. They tried to make conversation, but the music was stifling. Elroy was successful in making Mary laugh a few times before she grew tired of the noise and the crowd, even if she was enjoying the way that his breath tickled her ear when he spoke. "I have a flask in my purse!" she shouted. He smiled and led her to the front door.
Holding hands, they stepped outside. The summer night was warm and humid and the stars seemed almost to be viewed from underwater. They walked to the car, their heels crunching sharply in the gravel of the parking lot. Mary shivered in the dark, an unusual sense of foreboding. She pulled Elroy’s hand closer to her and shivered again. He seemed not to notice, his mind on where they were headed. Their conversation was punctuated by quiet laughter and the soft voices that occur when you begin to realize the person you like might like you as well. As they walked they had been aware of a rhythmic clanging sound, which was growing louder with every step. It began on the edges of their perception and suddenly filled their awareness, stopping Elroy mid-sentence. They rounded a corner and saw a figure at the edge of the bright circle cast by the streetlight. He was slamming his fists against a metal dumpster. He seemed to be in a kind of trance, punching and muttering to himself. Mary gasped, “Paul!” escaping her mouth before she even knew what she was doing. The figure turned toward them. She dropped Elroy’s hand and started a step or two farther down the path, before stopping abruptly. Elroy started to say, "You know this guy?" but was immediately silenced by the look in Paul's eye. It was pure loathing, anger and disgust. Paul took a step toward them, “How long has this been happening?" Elroy tensed and turned to leave, but Mary stopped him, saying to Paul, “How long has what been happening?” “This, the two of you together. It makes me sick.”
Mary laughed, a shrill giggle escaping her lips before she could clamp a hand over her mouth.
Elroy looked at Paul like he was crazy. “Are you kidding man? I only just met her.” He started to walk away and Mary grabbed him. “Are you leaving me?” she rasped, some of the surprise of seeing Paul giving way to fear that she would be left alone with him. Elroy shook her off and started back toward the club. “Nice to meet you both,” he said as he disappeared back into the shadow, the smoke from his cigarette trailing after him.
Paul had been edging closer to Mary while he was talking. Now he quickly reached out his hand and grabbed her wrist.
“What is your problem!” she shrieked.
“I thought things were going so well. I thought we were getting along so nicely. Then you had to go and ruin everything. Now I’m going to have to punish you.”
“It’s really a shame,” he said, brushing the hair out of her terrified eyes. “Why do you make me do this? Why do they always make me do this?”
Mary noticed a sharp glint of metal. She had mistaken it for Paul’s lighter, but now she realized it was a very small knife. He was waving it back and forth as he spoke, his movements becoming more erratic with every word. She had liked Paul immediately. She had never been the kind of girl to back away from a challenge and everything Paul represented called to the gladiator inside of her. Paul had a leather jacket, and a tough attitude. She was charmed by the way he smiled, the way he held a cigarette. She had thought there was something sleek and dangerous under his soft-spoken southern drawl. She had been disappointed when, after three dates, it failed to manifest. She hadn't seen or spoken to him for a week. Like most young girls, she assumed that once she was through with a boy, he was also through with her. She was soon to find out how very, very wrong she was.

2010-10-12T11:20:00.001-04:00

Away From Me

The child we made
Seeping from my body
You turn away
Front door
Shuts

We took a trip
Across the world
I fear I
Left you
There

Everything is
Making less sense
Worrying,
All I
Do

Come back she cried
Come back come back
No answer
Nothing
None

2010-10-12T11:18:00.002-04:00

Burgeoning

The winter nights have become her cathedral.
She stands alone and unfettered,
free in a way she has never been
and terrified by the responsibility.

A girl alone has to knit her life,
make her decisions and pinpoint
the moment things unravel.

It was in the way he washed the dishes.
How his hands moved in the soapy water,
Scrubbing each piece of flatware and holding
them all in a bunch. A silver and white bouquet.

They knew each other for always,
in her mind and in their molecules.
Symbiosis on an atomic level.

The outcome not forthcoming.
She prays for rain as he once
prayed for ruin. Both lost.

Her pants come down and she hopes
desperately, violently for a bloom.
A shadow, a silhouette.
Finding nothing.

The fabric remains white, virginal.
Unlike the girl.
Her stomach swells and aches
and she wishes for disaster.

2010-10-12T11:18:00.001-04:00

The Year He Spent In Prison

He moves like a boxer, or a stevedore.
A dancer in iron shoes.
Tied to the earth.
Hands, hardened, scarred, tattooed.
Always loose fists at his side,
Spoiling for a fight.

A wild animal inside a home,
The only cage his own devising,
His own limitations.
Thinking he doesn’t know how to
Be graceful, or gentle, or
Accept the hugs, praise,
given freely
by everyone he knows.

The snakes have no defense
Against his many charms
Trouble with a capital T
That comes with a grin
Teeth slightly askew
And eyes like raw emeralds

You could have guessed his future
Before it happened.
Live Fast, Die Young
Aspiring to be one of the greats
Somehow now 33,
hairs cropping up in strange places
Drinking to dull the pain

A cliché of a cliché of a cliché

NPR

2010-10-12T11:15:00.002-04:00

This isn't going to win. They wanted actual ghost stories, which is fucking dumb. Here's what I wrote.

"Some people swore that the house was haunted."

Jeremy read that line and laughed. He was sitting in the lobby of the Seagram Building, sprawled across a chair. One gray-woolen clad leg thrown carelessly over the arm, the magazine that had recently caused such amusement dangling from his fingertips.

The people streaming between the banks of elevators and the revolving door took no notice of his loose posture. They had places to be. They had reason, motivation, and momentum. Jeremy had none.

He had wandered in a few minutes ago, sat and picked up the first magazine lying in a careful arrangement on the table beside him. It fell open to a story about ghost-hunters. He read, caring little for what was imparted. He just wanted the feeling of doing something. The laughter came as a bit of a shock. He had forgotten that there was anything left that could cause amusement. He had almost forgotten what amusement was.

He sat and watched and waited. The bustle of people began to slow as the day wore on. He watched the light change across the lobby floor. He thought about crossing to the coffee cart and buying a cup, but lacked even the basic motivation of desire. He no longer knew how to want, or what wanting meant. He only knew the words. He knew that he was supposed to feel hunger, or thirst, or pain. He knew he should want comfort, shelter, or companionship. These meant nothing. He knew a blank. He knew a cold, damp fog that enshrouded him.

The laugh had startled his heart awake enough to think about coffee, to remember how he had once loved watching her green eyes through the steam that curled over the top of her mug. His laugh made him think of her laugh, and that, coupled with a nascent image of her smile, of their mornings together, brought a pain sharp enough to make him gasp aloud. He retreated to the fog.

He had loved her. Even now he loved her, in a way that he knew was meaningful, or should be meaningful. She saved him, once, quite literally. To act without regard for personal safety, to sacrifice, is held as the highest of values. When you lead a life where your actions are a perfect embodiment of your values, you become a bit reckless. She wanted him to live. Jeremy wanted to murder the doctor who had allowed the blood transfusion, but knew it was not really his fault. She never mentioned her condition. She had only seen him, anemic and declining and made a choice, his life for hers. The doctors tried everything to save her.

He knew this and still could not contain the anger. He was angry with her for thinking his life held more value. He was angry with the doctors for failing. He was most of all angry with himself for his current thoughts. He looked up and thought of thirty-eight floors. He thought of steel, and glass. “That’s what I’m made of, steel, glass, concrete.” He thought of the chill beginning to creep across New York, people turning up their collars and donning gloves against the rawness in the air. Not quite winter, but creeping beyond fall.
He thought again of the height, five hundred and sixteen feet. He pictured the asphalt, the cars whizzing by on Park Avenue, busily approaching Grand Central, or the tunnel under the MetLife building. He thought it would be cold. That was appropriate. He stood.

Nothing was ever the same again after that.

2009-08-12T12:35:00.004-04:00

She sees him and begins to shake. Her hands are nervous, betraying the smile she has pasted across her face. She sets down the coffee mug on the counter so it doesn't slosh over the side, but the sugar is spilling from the packet and entirely missing the coffee, such is the gyration of her limbs.

Every nerve ending is pulled taut and vibrating, like a violin the moment before the first note is struck. Her body screams his name, repeats in her head, through her steps, traipsing across her dreams.

She wants to be wrapped in his arms, then things are ok. Then things are safe. She knows that the way things are is wrong. His ignoring her. Their not speaking. The pain they both carry like children, snuggled close to the chest. It is a deep and abiding pain, felt in every muscle, in every smile, in every breath.

The way he looks at her is still the same way he did. His head too close and ducked down a little. She always felt she never could really look him in the eye. This is her problem. His eyes were always wide open. She just didn't see it.

She rides her bike around the city. People see her and yell, or wave. She doesn't see them. Headphones in, head down, focused on the cadence of her pedaling. His name repeating with every stroke.

There has to be a way out, but the city's walls are high.

2009-05-13T21:30:00.003-04:00

A Weight You Couldn’t Lift

He hated her. She had seen him at his most unguarded and for this he hated her.

She always wore those purple pumps. They never matched anything else she wore, but she never seemed to notice. She was standing on the corner, in the rain, the day he pulled up next to her. He rolled down the window of the car and nervously stuttered, "How much?" She smiled and replied, "Well, take me someplace nice and we'll see."

Her body was built for comfort, for the mitigation of misery and the receiving of supplicants. She was round, soft. Her every movement seemed to be a study of stillness.

She opened the door to the car and sat inside. The bottoms of her shoes were muddy. They left prints on the floor mat. He pretended not to notice. She pretended to be interested in his halting, pointless conversation. He drove to the hotel, obeying the speed limit and coming to a complete stop at all intersections. We are always the most lawful when committing illegal acts.

She stepped into the room and pressed the light switch. One small lamp on a bedside table illuminated the layers of grime defining the edges and surfaces of the room. She sat down on the bed, ignoring the possibility of disease. He kneeled beside her with the same indifference. His hands clasped around her waist, he pressed his face deep between her thighs. He breathed in the multiple layers of scent, her fleshy, cloying perfume, and stale cigarettes from the previous tenant. This is when he lost control. This is when he gave in to the pressure that had been building inside him like a storm. Like a storm, he broke. The sobs came in alternating waves and pulses. She smoothed his hair back from his forehead and whispered, "Shhh. Shhh." She held him close and rocked back and forth.

This is the best and worst that a woman can offer, to be a mother, a comforter, a confidant. This is what men need. This is the reason they force women into submission, why they degrade and defile them. There is a need deep in the DNA for this ease, these sounds, and this warmth that is closest to regaining the womb. It is deeper and more intimate than sex. It is worse and more insulting than refusal. This is when a man reveals his weakness. This is all a woman can do.

They stayed that way for several hours. He stood, tears and saliva dried and caking on his face, on her skirt, like so many other stains. Her legs were numb. She had difficulty standing, but still managed to walk to the door with some dignity. He shoved the money into her hands with great disdain, crumpling the bills in his frenzy. He watched her walk down the hall, wobbling a little on her uneven purple heels.

2009-05-13T21:30:00.001-04:00

The Last Night of the Fair

It was a trinket, small and mostly plastic. He won it for her at the state fair, on their second date. They had walked around eating corn dogs and cotton candy. She had tied his gift around her neck with a string. The string was taken from a post next to the world's smallest sheep, which really didn't deserve that title. They had their picture taken. In the picture it looks silvery blue and gleams with a metallic flash. It was really just cheap blue plastic, that tiny straight razor. It seemed to be something you would get in a gumball machine. Though who would distribute plastic straight razors to children? He won it in the ring toss.

She had a choice between a spider ring (one of the cheap ones that didn't connect all the way in the center and always pinched your fingers, no matter how small they are) and a straight razor. She chose the latter because it amused her that it was a prize, and it reminded her of the one she kept at home. It had been her grandfather's.

One of her earliest memories was the sound of him sharpening it in the mornings, summers when they would stay at his house. A sharp rasping sound as the blade glided back and forth across the leather strap. She would watch in awe as he lathered the soap, and then his face. He shaved recklessly, carelessly, and never seemed to cut himself. He used to joke that the blade was a fake. She knew that it was real though. Her jaw still bore the scar from the day she had played "barber" with her two cousins. She had never seen her granddad as mad as he had been that day. There was a stunning fury lighting his eyes as he spanked them each in turn.

Her new necklace brought back these memories, as she laughed and smiled at the fair. They were obvious, intrinsic. She could not help her synaptic connections. One inexorably led to the other. Her date kissed her good night at the door. He was a gentleman, handsome and kind. She thought he would make a good husband, and a good father, one day, for someone.

She was tired. A siren wailed outside her window. "Not for me," she thought. "Too soon." Her eyes closed in anticipation of the first cut. It didn't hurt. The blade was sharp. Her grandfather had taught her well. Razor to wrist, pining, pining, she clutched her necklace and finally slept.

2009-05-13T21:29:00.001-04:00

Darling

Hattie carried the opera glasses everywhere. They were not in the best condition. One lens was partially cracked and the pin that allowed them to swivel from side to side was rusted nearly to the point of disintegration. Also, when she was bored, which was often, she would absentmindedly flake the precious mother-of-pearl coating from the sides, admiring the way it made her fingers sparkle in the sun. She would tuck the glasses into the waistband of her pants or place them carefully in the bottom of her orange and white vinyl purse. It made her feel so adult. She also carried two sticks of gum, sixty-seven cents, a partially eaten kit-kat bar and the dried husk of a long dead ant. The ant was not an intentional inclusion, but had so far gone unnoticed. Hattie used the opera glasses for looking at birds, or stars, or the bees and flowers in the field next to her house. She called them "binoperlurs." She was still at the age where ignorance is charming. It wouldn’t last.

not winners

2009-05-13T21:24:00.001-04:00

As For Me, I’ll Stay Inside

He ran because they were chasing him.

Just a few days ago, life was simple. It was the same thing day after day. Wake up. Go to work. Come home. Watch TV. Wash your hair. Brush your teeth. Feed the dog. Sit at your desk and eat peanut butter m&ms. Feel your gut expand. Feel your waistband constrict. Feel your muscles wither. Feel your bones atrophy. Normal life. The life he had known for 31 years. Now everything was different.

It began slowly. There were rumors circulating on the Internet, tales of the reanimated dead in foreign nations. They had mostly been debunked as strictly rumor, until the stories started appearing on the news, late night television. Things not fit for prime time. Then another jump, interrupting regularly televised programs. Shown during suppertime. Mike couldn't believe it at first. It was the beginning of April after all. This had to be just a bad joke gone horribly wrong. Some true stories were very difficult to believe, but zombies? That had to be false. There were no such things as zombies. He knew that. Doctors knew that. Everyone knew that. So why was it there, on his television, in his morning paper, interrupting Lost?

At first he shook his head at the easy belief of most people. The stories kept coming, reaching closer and closer to California. Stories broadcast from the East Coast, apparently related to freight from Europe. Then as the reports came in from the Midwest, news from the East stopped. Mike couldn't decide which was more terrifying, the horrible news reports, or no reports at all. Most of Mike's neighbors and coworkers laughed it off, preferring their small lives to thoughts of imminent destruction. Mike felt otherwise. He tried to prepare. There wasn't a lot of time. The epidemic seemed to be spreading faster than anyone could have predicted or anticipated. Although there had been many tongue-in-cheek books written about the zombie apocalypse, no one really had any idea where to begin.

Mike bought guns. He bought ammunition. He stocked up on food and water and bought two by fours and sturdy nails to barricade his doors. Modern culture really knew nothing about the dead, what they thought or felt. Mike thought, "This is certainly going to redefine a lot of ideas of heaven and hell, should anyone survive to think such things." He knew now that death was just a disease, a virus that cannot be contained. Thanks to modern science and an explosion at a nuclear research lab in Uzbekistan, now everyone knew that death is not a permanent condition. The dead were on the move, and they were hungry.

Contrary to popular mythology, the living dead didn't want brains, nor did they want blood. They were after souls, spirit, that thing inside each of us that keeps us going, motivates us to get out of bed and stick to our routines. That is what fed the living dead. That is what made them hunt us, that quintessence. People who were confined to hospitals with breathing tubes and machines living for them were spared. People who were confined to bed with the bleakest desolation were spared. What world was left to them though? A decision to rejoin the living would be signing their death warrants. Suicides increased by the hundred thousands.

When they arrived at his door, Mike wanted to fight. He managed to put holes in a few of them, but that only slowed them a little. His barricades were worthless against their super-human strength. That was how most of the people were being killed. After the aptly named “Zombie Kiss” sucked the vitality out, the heads were simply torn from the bodies and tossed aside, like husks. Mike escaped through the back door and ran, crashing into trashcans and trees and cars and clotheslines. He ran blindly, terrified. The thought repeating in his head, branded there through countless late night movie viewings was "Zombies don't run. Zombies don't run." He wanted to find the guy who came up with that theory and punch him square in the mouth. Not that he could have known. Not that anyone could have known.

Mike had never felt such exhilarating fear. His muscles screamed. His mouth burned with the acid taste of adrenaline. He slid down the drainage ditch on the side of the highway. He hoped that the bristly scrub grass would provide some cover. On the way down he passed the strata of debris tossed, intentionally or otherwise, from the cars that would race past. He saw a skateboard, missing a wheel and cracked in half. He saw a baby doll with one blue eye and a hole that was now a home for varieties of beetles. Her long blonde hair sullied with dirt. He thought there must be a lesson in this. The things we lose, stay lost. Or perhaps that we build our entire lives around the missing spaces where things once were, aching from their continued and mostly forgotten absence. Mike slipped on some gravel. He went down hard. Breathless from the fall he stared into the night sky. He calmly thought, "I have never seen so many stars." He stood, brushing dirt from the back of his pants, and savored the breath drawn into his lungs. "I am alive." He ran. The hunt continued.

Times

2008-10-02T11:14:00.001-04:00

Out in public. Anywhere. All these people. Pawing, grasping, clutching one another. Falling and drowning in swallowing pools of lust. Tidal, brutal, the briny scent of desire tainting the air. He can smell her. Put out his tongue and taste the edges of her scent, her secret places. This makes him sick. Nauseated, soul-crushing illness. He shakes and sweats with fever. He is three feet from her, two, one. He cannot, physically, impossibly cannot bridge that distance and take her hand. Graze her palm with his fingertips. That would be the beginning, or the end. No one is ready for that.

Please Please Please

2008-07-07T09:21:00.002-04:00

This is such a small town. You can't believe anything you hear. Everything you've been told about me is a lie. These people. They make me sick. They pretend friendship for only as long as you're facing them. The second your back is turned, all's fair in love and war. Except there isn't any love. There never was. It's a rough and disheartening thing. Trust is a luxury we can't afford. Your secrets get locked up inside yourself. Eventually you run out of space. You have to tell someone or you'll explode. It doesn't matter, you die either way. You keep trying to trust people and they keep breaking promises.

It's why I stay at home with the cats. They talk a lot, but they only speak kitten.

Summer

2008-07-01T14:39:00.003-04:00

She reeks of desperation. Sitting at her desk. She is freezing even though the outside air temperature is 82 and sunny. Please remember she is in the US. Only the King's measuring system is good enough. None of your silly little metrics. She can feel the waves of sick radiating off, like a fever. Her eyes are bright with lust. Every guy who walks past gets the eye. She feels like a construction worker, as if she should be holding welding tools or a jackhammer instead of tapping on keys.

She was having a conversation with someone who didn't know she had recently become single. She was surprised. She was certain that everyone must know. Not because they had been told but because the heartbreak was oozing from the pores of her skin. Flashing neon light above her head "unloved. unloved. unloved."

She gets messages from old friends and thinks they all must have ulterior motives. She makes new friends and hopes they don't notice hers. She is tired and cannot sleep. The bed is too big, too hot, too cold, too lumpy, too soft. She is a brown haired goldilocks in a modern world. The cats are insistent. They grow hoarse from the constant meowing for food or attention. She feels the same as they. Only her meowing is internal, screaming for attention. She's screaming for love.

2008-05-19T15:08:00.003-04:00

We speak in tongues.
Our tongues meet and speak again
We tell each other the secrets that passed since we last met
The lies we told to be where we are now
We have passed the information
back and forth in code
messages adrift in the ocean of this digital age
trying to say yes to you without saying no to anyone else
wondering if what you wrote holds meaning
or if it is only words
i want your mouth to whisper all your secrets to my skin
trace your fingers on the sentences of my veins
Remember the time we went across the sea
And made love on the foreign shores
The wetness left on rumpled sheets
displayed a map of our travels and adulteries
This is need, not love.

Homecoming

2008-05-01T10:50:00.007-04:00

Returning to my parent's house is painful. I walk into the front entry and stare at the antique vase. It has always been there. It maintains a place of prominence on top of the matching antique table. It greets visitors as a solid reminder of status and sanity.

I sigh and put down my bag, preparing. It takes a squaring of the shoulders and several deep breaths in order to take the three steps into the kitchen. I know they are in there waiting.

I enter and they turn to me, slack-jawed and empty-eyed. They are waiting for reassurance and instruction. I wasn't aware of the point when I became older than my parents. There was no party, no fanfare. It happened unnoticed, like the passage from child to adult, or wife to mother. You blink and everything is different, much as everything is still the same.

I lost my parents with the lights. It seemed simple enough. Lights left on in every corner of their home. Lamps, overhead lights, strings of track lighting. At every turn I was flicking light switches to the off position. I thought they were just getting forgetful, or had reached the point of wealth where electricity bills were an afterthought, not the difference between eating ramen for weeks on end or being able to afford a real meal.

It had always been “lights out, lights out,” for bedtime or leaving the house, even just moving from room to room. Now things were changed. On visits I noticed they were walking behind me, quietly sneaking up to the switches and undoing my work. Then I realized; they weren't unaware of the light. They weren’t indifferent to the cost. They craved light, required it, and were desperate without it. My parents, as children, feared the dark.

There are bad things in the dark. We know this from the moment we are born. In childhood they are monsters, bad guys, changes and uncertainties. As we age, they become more sinister, the ghosts of failed marriages, bad parenting, and unrealized dreams. We no longer fear uncertainty; we fear the permanence of our positions.

This is my darkness. This is my future. We move from unknowing to knowing and there is no way back. Our only hope is to have someone to hold our hand as we search for any distant shimmer.

Reassuringly I take my parents by the hand. We step slowly from the darkening kitchen. Together we walk past the antique vase, faces into the light.

Mom, but altered

2008-05-01T10:50:00.005-04:00

Lately my mother has taken to telling me survival stories. Specifically, stories about very young girls who have managed to stay alive in horrific situations. The story of a three-year-old whose mother was arrested. They thought the girl was out of the apartment, staying with a family friend. She made herself bowls of cereal and watched television until someone found her. The story of a two-year-old whose mother drove the car off a bridge, a suicide attempt, an effort to save her daughter from the life she had lived? The girl survived and spent five days eating crackers and huddling under her dead mother's coat until someone noticed the skid marks.

She stops me in the middle of odd tasks. I'll be transferring laundry from the washer to the dryer, or walking down the hall with a glass of milk and a peanut butter sandwich. Waking me up in the middle of the night to whisper in my ear about another girl who survived yet another horror. She's like a specter, wandering the house in her nightgown and thermal undershirt. She seems disconnected, translucent. I want to reassure her somehow that I'm still here. Her daughter's still alive.

I don't know how to take these stories. It reminds me of the irony of her favorite vase, a riot of color, flowers nodding gleefully above the lip of the brown bottle. It is antique and still enclosed in its original brown paper, the “poison” stamped across it in direct opposition to the vibrant life above. Is that some secret I should decipher? There is something about females that genetically predisposes them to horror. She is telling me I could have had it worse. Or is she telling me these things as an effort to show me that life will continue. No matter what we do, life will continue.

This Is No Easy Ride

2008-05-01T10:48:00.002-04:00

The phone was gray, heavy and stolid. It sat, listless in its cradle. He stared at it. The room was dim and the light from the buttons seemed glaring, somehow needy and desperate, much as he was.

His reason for the phone was a lie. He told everyone it was because of his extensive traveling. While he did disappear for long periods of time, he didn’t travel in the true sense of the word. It was a withdrawal. It was a vacation, from the world, from life. Not the most pleasant trip. The walls of his apartment felt claustrophobic after a few days. That particular shade of institutional green was not the sweeping vista he described on his “return.”

He cocked his head toward the music trickling down from the apartment above. The girl who lived there was kind, slightly overweight but still passably attractive. They went on a date once. It wasn’t intentional. They had run into one another, dining alone at the same neighborhood restaurant and haltingly, embarrassingly, combined miseries. The conversation was slow, tripping and stuttering through fits and stops. They both smiled, hiding their teeth behind their hands. He left her with his number, the one for his mobile phone. “To reach me anywhere,” he quipped, impressed by his own bravado.

That had been weeks ago. They had passed once, in the hall, faces stiff and frozen by fear of true human interaction. He still hoped though. He still dreamed of her half hidden smile.

So he sat, staring at the gray phone. It was nearly the same hue as the gun he held. He was playing a waiting game. “If the phone rings in the next ten minutes…” Then after ten minutes, feeling the weight of the gun, saying, “If the phone rings in the next five minutes…”

The gunshot was heard as a physical blow. She gasped and jumped, causing the record she’d been playing to scratch. She had been playing it over and over, staring at the number clutched in her hand. There was no time to notice the destruction. She pressed the final button.

The phone rang, and rang again.

There was no one left to answer.

2007-08-17T19:19:00.001-04:00

i've had the same face since i was four. nothing about me has changed, or matured. things have just gotten larger. my ears, my ego, my indecisions. he sat with me and wondered, as i did, why they would need to know my birthday. he winced as they asked my last name. he didn't realize that it no longer carried the same weight, the same sense of danger or despair. i couldn't break it to him. the incident that earned him such infamy was nearly a decade ago. it was still such a presence in his life that he could not imagine how it could have slipped from anyone else's. are we all stuck in our histories. are we all living in the past.

2007-06-18T12:48:00.001-04:00

The thing I remember most about the last conversation I had with my mother was the laughter. It was a normal conversation. I hadn’t spoken to her in several days and wondered how she had been. She answered in her ordinary, harried sort of voice, distinctly giving the impression that she was annoyed with me. She often spoke that way. I never did discover if she was angry, or why. We were saying our goodbyes and I made some small remark, some bon mot that, try as I may, I have absolutely no hope of recalling. I wish I could remember it. Had I known how important that conversation would become, I would have remembered. I would have become the angel on my shoulder, whispering into the pink shell of my own ear “Remember this.” I would have somehow arranged to tape-record the entire thing. I didn’t know. How could we ever? Still, she laughed. As she was saying goodbye, I could hear the tinkling bells in her voice, some small moment of delight echoing through the air. At least I have that much. At night, when it’s worse, I cling to it, that ghostly sound of bells at a far distance. If I could have that moment again, well perhaps this all would have ended much differently.

discomfort

2007-06-12T13:30:00.006-04:00

I got kissed on the mouth by a boy last night. it was shocking and completely unexpected. it's someone i have flirted with from time to time, but that's more because i am a flirt and desperate for hugs and human contact than because i actually have any interest or attraction in this person. i was standing at the top of the stairs, mostly asleep and blind, having been dragged out of bed without time to reach for my glasses, whining and cold-footed from the concrete floor and open door in the workshop. he ran up the stairs and i, thinking he was headed for the kitchen or the bathroom, stepped back to be out of the way. instead he kissed me, once, hard and purposefully on the mouth, and dashed back down the stairs. i just stood there, stupidly, gaping, hand on the doorknob. i yelled something and then wandered back to my bedroom. all i could think of was how my breath must be horrible. sleep-filled, atrocious mouth. and i wished it were someone else.

seasons

2007-06-12T13:30:00.005-04:00

last night it snowed for a minute. around 11:30 the street out front was invisible under a seeming fabric of white. we looked out the window and didn't see the snow falling. we'd been fighting for over an hour at that point and both felt tired and worn. run down under the constant weight of our mutual love and admiration. it gets wearisome. slow. i took his hand and we walked through the silent house. the window over the kitchen sink gave the view of the dim landscape. for a brief span of time there was a little bit of magic in the air. by morning it was gone. the snow, the magic, any love that was created in that moment. this morning all i had was an overwhelming feeling of loneliness, and nausea.

november

2007-06-12T13:30:00.003-04:00

5 pm and i can't tell if the hum that splits my skull
is the television or the fish tank
air filter filtering water, what sense does that make?
i tried to do my stretches like we talked about
but the warm air filled my sinus
and the pressure made me take off screaming
from the heat and breath
where is your breath?
on whom are you breathing when you sleep at night?
i know it isn't me
for my bed lies cold and empty
and all i want is a shower
to sluice away
the dirt and the dust and the stench,
the smell of you which permeates, incessantly.
there is no soap in the world
which can wash away my heart.
it's a pity.
these lonely days.

for you, though you'll never read it

2007-06-12T13:30:00.001-04:00

See, the truth is, you stole my heart. Took it away with your smile and your sparkling eyes. i got used to living without it. i got really good at it in fact, made the necessary adjustments, accepted that it was gone and the hole where it had been. So i didn't realize when you gave it back. After all, the emptiness was still there. It was only after a long while that i understood, it wasn't my heart that was missing any longer.

it was you.

empty sky

2007-06-12T13:29:00.006-04:00

you wouldn't believe the rain today. i can see it and i don't believe it. the violence in the sound and the way it hits the earth. no longer in individual droplets, but sheets. metallic almost. carving away at the dirt and my insides. the world has turned a grey that cannot be expressed by anything other than the taste you get in your mouth when you wake up and it's dark and you haven't remembered falling asleep. that clinging, instantaneous fear. i wake late and do nothing. no one else has touched the brownies and i watch the hole grow bigger and bigger. more negative space taking over the baking dish. i know it must be me. jesse doesn't touch them because he watches his figure like a prize fighter, or a fashion model. he complains about my baking and cooking, but eats the black beans and rice anyway. though they are bland and too oniony, because there are less calories than in the pizza he had taken out of the refrigerator, but not the plastic bag. and i sit in my room and watch the rain come down. the world outside is greengreyblack. almost colorless in its vibrancy. and the noise. no thunder. no lightning, just this incessant chatter. slicing, sluicing, sliding. and the music i listen to doesn't help. it doesn't fill the silence inside, or drown out this drowning rain. though i turn it up as loudly as it will go. it's all ceaseless noise. nonsensical sound. this feeling of disconnectedness. and solitude.

baltimore

2007-06-12T13:29:00.005-04:00

i watched you disappear
pixellated and slow
in the darkening down of the dimming night
falling around your shoulders
and in your lap
like a blanket that would keep you warm
make you safe
like the fort you built when you were 9
or 29 or 30 or yesterday
to hide from the things
that hurt you and bring you low
level by level
discussions of danger and repression
representing all the things i thought i lost
but found again
in broken pieces on your front yard
where you stood and said
"death is not sad for the dying"

the passing of time and all of its sickening crimes...

2007-06-12T13:29:00.003-04:00

this is what we've become. we are the ghosts in faded photographs. snapshots of moments that weren't all that important at the time. caught in eternity, dancing, laughing, hugging, smiling. we all act like what we are not for the cameras. no one wants to be caught tragic and desperate. alone against the wall, drink in hand, waiting for someone else to make the first move. so we put on brave faces, gay miens that do not reflect us even slightly. then the bulb flashes and we are frozen. and then we fade. and the pictures remain. and no one would ever know that we are all tormented. we just smile. and smile.

day 4

2007-06-12T13:29:00.001-04:00

i want my teeth to be whiter. blindingly so. like people i see in advertisements. so i use the crest white strips because i am guaranteed visibly whiter teeth in 14 days. today is day 4 and my gum hurts where the peroxide is eating through my skin. it's worth it though right? i woke up with a bloody lip again this morning. it's this air, this winter. i'm too dry, even shed of tears. there's nothing left to cry about. i'll just try to drink more water. i'm at work again, though i was late today for the first time. i turned off my alarm clock and settled back down into my horror/fantasy world of sleep. the sort of dreams that wake me to send fevered mis-remembered text messages at 4 am, to which i receive no response. that's expected though. my bed was at least warm, as nowhere else is, except perhaps your bed, when we're in it together. i'm wearing my favorite sweater. the one i bought that night we sat in your car and fought for two hours. no, not that night, the other one. the similar one. but it's hard to differentiate because all our fights blend into the same thing. i can't remember if i last told you i loved you or hated you. it wouldn't make much of a difference which, at this point i just feel numb. i'm still waiting for your touch to surprise me, wake me into feeling. i got my hair cut yesterday, and it looks better, shinier, healthier, though still much longer than you would like it to be. it's in my eyes, but it's good to hide behind, from this world i loathe, you know, the one i have without you in it.

i am tedious in my predictability

2007-06-12T13:28:00.007-04:00

i used to watch the sun come up
through the sideways panes
of my bedroom window
made crooked by lying supine
exhausted into sleeplessness
by words of blank anticipation
wondering if you did the same
at the other end
of our foolish conversations
tins cans strung together
across a distance
did that ever work?
the idea that people could communicate
or understand one another?
we all get trapped
into believing ourselves heard
by those we'd like to hear
and i had you to show me
that it's all smoke and mirrors
lies and petty trickery
i know i should thank you

what’s lost is found

2007-06-12T13:28:00.005-04:00

Lately my mother has taken to telling me survival stories. Specifically, stories about very young girls who have managed to stay alive in horrific situations. The story of a 3 year old whose mother was arrested. They thought the girl was out of the apartment, staying with a family friend. She made herself bowls of cereal and watched television until someone found her. The story of a 2 year old whose mother drove the car off a bridge, a suicide attempt, an effort to save her daughter from the life she had lived? The girl survived and spent 5 days eating crackers and huddling under her dead mother's coat until someone saw the car had crashed.

She stops me in the middle of odd tasks. I'll be transferring laundry from the washer to the dryer, or walking down the hall with a glass of milk and a peanut butter sandwich. Waking me up in the middle of the night to whisper in my ear about another girl who survived yet another horror. She's like a specter, wandering the house in her nightgown and thermal undershirt. She seems disconnected, translucent. I want to reassure her somehow that I'm still here. Her daughter's still alive.

I don't know how to take these stories. Is she telling me I could have had it worse? Is she leaving out the stories about males who have done well for themselves? Is there something about females that genetically predisposes them to suffer horrors? Or is she telling me these things as an effort to show me that life will continue regardless. Life will continue.

try to find somebody else

2007-06-12T13:28:00.003-04:00

the fists thrown out in sharp relief
against the pain in knowing i am here
and you are not
there was a time when needing you was unnecessary
and then broken in vain the thought i was stronger than this
lost to this vast grey landscape
of buildings and paper trails leading nowhere
all the streets worn by the ceasless footsteps
all those who are unseeing and unknown
never have i felt so alone
as when i am next to you
freedom is where i end and you begin

i lost you by dreaming

2007-06-12T13:28:00.001-04:00

the photographs you took on tour
were not for me
i dont cross your mind as often
as you'd like me to believe
at 3 am when weariness
like a thread has drawn your head
to the pillow where beneath my heart rests
and your eyes close down
shutters on your breathing world
it isn't me that fills your head
with ghostly night dreams
or wishes of what might be
but tonight when i'm abed
all I’m thinking of is you

these nights

2007-06-12T13:27:00.007-04:00

when sleep struck,
we wrapped ourselves
in san francisco nights.
warmed by awkward silences,
instead of one another.
our bodies twisting contortions.
avoiding the contact
that would signify defeat,
or at least desire.
and i for one,
am too alone,
to cross the distance found,
between where i end,
and you begin.
side by side
on a twin sized bed.

wasted

2007-06-12T13:27:00.005-04:00

all I do is dream of you
wake alone
and think of when we lay together
curled in peace
the dreams suspended
my hand on the concave of your chest
fantasizing a murder
i’d never be able to commit

what words are these

2007-06-12T13:27:00.003-04:00

i leave the house so little these days
a walk to the store
at a desperate pace
bearing the brunt of catcalls and whistles
the stares as i go past
caress me much more roughly than your hands
inside, lights too bright
technicolored and brilliant
spanish voices in the loudspeaker
too surreal
to not be dreaming
returning home with things
i cant even recall
examining the strata of the litter
as it passes below
inside to carve up fruit
gleaming with disease
priced cheaply, overripe
bloated and succulent
the taste of your lips
and i wonder if this sweetness
is worth the pain that will follow

self serving to say the least

2007-06-12T13:27:00.001-04:00

A heartbeat hangs on the edge of a very thin wire, unsure whether to thrum or cease. My hands beat a restless rhythm on the steering wheel and the cracked asphalt unwinds behind me, a reel of regret and hesitation, shining silver in the moonlight and the reflected glow of the snow silent land. My path unraveling, adding miles to the distance of air created in an awkward moment, a disingenuous embrace. Years of words dissolved, crumbling to ash and silence. Wayward wishes and unfulfilled glances bitter in the dissolute instant of distempered grace. Worlds created and destroyed, kingdoms found and lost, lives emptied in the span of seconds in which mouths meet. A brilliant plot, rendered thoughtless and unfounded. Motivations misjudged and desire derailed by wanting. Caution and consequence recklessly abandoned. Words placed upon perilous ideas. Unhindered by knowledge of facts and physics. Fantasies exposed and impotent in filtered streetlights. All lie violently seperated into parts by your bedside. Sharing your pillows with sorrows. Too soon to become distorted and undifferentiated from dreams. Shaky footing indeed for the following day.

never realized how wrong i was

2007-06-12T13:26:00.005-04:00

falling in love with the idea of you
even as i forget what the you i know is
or looks like
or the way you smell when i wake next to you
my bad dreams halted in your nearness
and the safety i found in your arms
the storms outside are nothing compared
to what rages inside me
hopeless and alone
when you have forgotten
and even the idea of me is lost

i spoke his name and it still came out wrong

2007-06-12T13:26:00.003-04:00

The emptiness that stretched out before her
the roads dimmed and darkened.
She looked at her lover sleeping
hands curled tight beneath his cheek
and the space where she had lain.
She pressed her chin to her knee
and was amazed at the loneliness that will exist
in the distance between skin
and the weight of his breath
solid with sleep and bitter dreams.
Two bodies pressed tightly
on the hard surface of a fold out couch
can create enough energy in longing
to erase all fear.

Summer

2007-06-12T13:26:00.001-04:00

what do you do when your backup plan fails?
all the people who said they'd love you forever gone away in time and space.
You're too afraid of being hurt to let anyone else in.
To let anyone get close to you.
So what then?
You've decided, made decisions,
agreed upon desires and still it goes nowhere
He doesn't want you.
Tells you again and again that's it's over.
The one you thought was for always.
Now for nothing. Nowhere. Never.
What do you do then?
What do you do?

yes you have seen this too

2007-06-12T13:25:00.002-04:00

This is me failing...

Oh these days and oh these nights. They're killing me. How can I sleep when you're not at my side? You remember the way our bodies fit and how we touched and the way we loved. I can close my eyes and see you here. Imagine my fingers touching your hair. I can feel your breath against my face and the way your heart beats into mine.

I wish I could lie, but you know that the truth hurts more. That loss of love and loss of life are often interchangeable. I wonder that we have made it so long and so far from where we meant to go. This isn't the life I dreamed. This is not the love I planned.

There is a tension that exists.

I remain broken. Place me beside you and I become whole. Time and distance and hurt and manipulation, these do not matter. My flesh is scarred in more ways than one. They all relate to you. All signs point your way. Everything references your existence. All graven images bear your face.

When you and I are near, the world exists in a different time, a subtle shift in a frame of reference. A picture of your ghost. The way I look, the what I see is altered, irrevocably. I can never listen to that song again and not feel my face tucked under your chin, the softness of your cheek and the way your stubble scrapes my flesh. I know your body in my dreams. Falling asleep alone, I would know you in an instant, adding ballast to my bed. I dream about your hands and the way our fingers interlace. The way you looked that last time I saw you. The hurt envelops. The trust dissolves. The image burns brightly on my retina. There is no erasing it. Seeing you is an eclipse of the sun, a permanent change in my perception.

Can I scream "I love you" loud enough for you to ever believe me? If I carve your name into my flesh enough times, will you believe me when I say that I am yours?

I just want to breathe your breath, touch your face, taste your tears and the sweat from your skin. I want oceans of nights swimming across the land we made and the love we wrecked and everything that was broken can be made whole again and all the lies I told you and all the times I said I was through, these are nothing compared to your hands on my face, your voice in my ear, your eyes catching mine and holding. I need you to bring me back. I am too close to the edge. There is no feeling in this world without you. There is no truth or beauty in this world when I cannot see how it appears to you. Nobody wants to die without being made a martyr. Nobody wants to live if it has to be alone.

If I had never met you I wouldn't know the drowning sorrow of this life that I am living, the hopelessness your name brings, the pain of your smile and the way your teeth are not quite perfect. The way your eyes compel stares like statues. How has it been so long? How did time get away from us again?

I am alone and crying out.

I wish I knew if you were listening. The emptiness that echoes across these beds, these oceans and currents. Miles between where I lay wakeful and you sleep dreamless, the sleep of the holy. I am made to bring you down, to break your soul. I am made to murder you.

Why don't you want to die?

i'm a collector of sound, a connoisseur of words

2007-06-12T13:10:00.003-04:00

10:05 am and nothing has changed. The same bleak hum of the office machines. The same horrible eye-bending, mind-warping fluorescent lighting, day in, day out, and where does it get me? Where have I gone? I dream to lead a life that's bigger, brighter, shinier than anything that anyone has ever lived. I dream too much. I sleep when I should be waking and wake when I might be sleeping. It becomes harder and harder to find the line between them. Harder and harder to see a difference.

I try to talk, and though the words make pretty shapes of my mouth, spiraling and whirling below the orbit of my brow, there is no air behind them. No conscious sense of being or action. No motivation. Words remain unsaid. Cluttering my throat with thoughts unspoken. Stagnating and rotting, filling my throat until I am turning blue from the lack of fresh air. Breathing in the poison fumes of all the dying thoughts. I am choking. It is better this way.

Do I need to let it out? The pain and sickness. Growing larger and stronger through apathy. I am so disgusted of making friends from razor blades. Creating actions from accidents and love from lies. I want it to help. I want it to make me whole again. Made whole by severing sections much less wanted. Made whole from scraps and bits unbroken. It's a temporary fix at best. A substitution of one affliction for another. A drug-free escapism.

Life can be bled from you, one drop, one ounce, one pint at a time, but the misery remains, clinging tight to the inside. Silvery strands of tangled webs, razor-wire and steel wool, squeezing round and clutching tight to the decaying muscle that once was my heart. Used to pump blindingly and hard and vibrant founts of red. Now is grey and useless. Atrophied. Seeping thick black steam. Forgotten, how to love and feel and hope.

Hands like birds floating in the clear sky. Translucent and fragile. Veins seen starkly through the skin. Trying to communicate with action, thought, anything at all. Words fail me. Cannot speak, cannot breathe. Broken down and restless from the weight of your absence. Gasping and retching, forced to my knees by your indifference. Too weak to push you away, or pull you closer.

Beauty and grace count for nothing. When did I learn that? Why can't you? If I could fly, what would be the point of jumping off rooftops? Where would it get me? Closer to you? If dreams could be made real, shaped from percale and silk, tangible and ravishing, could I fashion myself that way? Start anew and be someone, something, anything at all? Better than what remains in this empty wreck of me. If I told you that you held the thread which bound me all together, what would you do? One small word can exhale life back into this weary existence.

breathe...

i've said this all before

2007-06-12T13:10:00.001-04:00

i'm slicing myself open
laying bare the nerves for your inspection
you don't even see that i'm bleeding

this is looking a bit too familiar

2007-06-12T13:09:00.001-04:00

Oh endless night
when conversation falls like rain
stalls like endings
and silences can maim
make hearts beat harder
pauses and breath show empty promises
and a broken "nothing"
forms "i love you" to desperate ears
I didn't mean to give worth to that lie
let it hang there, strung between us
and give you a chance to reapeat it
savoring the sound
the words expanding in the darkness
let loose from your gentle mouth
to batter my weary soul

disappointed with disappointment

2007-06-12T13:04:00.000-04:00

delirium
and the fever dreams
that come with too much sleep
spent time thinking
radiators pressing outward with dry heat
grinding and hissing
straining to fill the silence
left by an emptied bed
stained sheets
flowers blooming crimson from arid sinuses
and spots like tears dried and flaking in the aftermath
when everything is seen too clearly
and even fantasies don't mask the fact that you are gone

Lies

2007-06-12T13:00:00.001-04:00

It was the bed, not the occupant which held such fascination. Easily agreed upon by anyone that had ever lain upon or slept in such comfort.

It was August, not October and it never even happened.

As to rumors of angry or critical emails written without response, there were none. I would know.

Tuesdays were lonesome

2007-06-12T12:58:00.001-04:00

i thought i was following the plan
simple steps with hand gestures
then you
back into my life
for such a brief second
and gone again
and now i'm sick
and tracking your steps
backwards through the last two years
you're not even there
just your ghost in passing
the way houses hold memories
of the things that we did
that night on the rug
because i didn't have a bed
you still said it was the best time of your life
were you lying? or was i?

Swollen and Small

2007-06-12T12:57:00.003-04:00

i am become hollow, wrung-out and empty.
closer to the inception. skeletal and cringing.
waking at 10 this morning and the time is simply a marker.
sleep a reprieve from conscious suspension.
anticipating contact that doesn't come.
driven by desire and disillusionment to find meaning.
turning to horoscopes. counting letters in conversations for significance.
27 incidences of the letter a, in 5 lines of conversation.
ultimately drawing the conclusion that this all means nothing.
lying in a life that's perfectly planned
and caught in the minutiae

Wednesdays in December

2007-06-12T12:57:00.001-04:00

when we arrive upon ourselves
in those unexpected places
we are startled beyond measure
disconcerted and grieving
though no one should be more
familiar or expected
we should see ourselves in all things
and we forget
we force away the world
division and derision
i and you
me and not me
everything that is, isn't
i am lost and i am losing
hot and nauseated
overwhelmed and voided
aching into empty space
fractured and still fragmenting
this is it

this is it

How things are is ambiguous at best

2007-06-12T12:56:00.003-04:00

just when everything is going so well, it isn't. i'm having feelings for someone i definitely shouldn't and everything is unreturned. phone calls, letters, emotions. i'm drowning in a sea of what ifs and could bes and i'm still so lonely at night, even when i'm being held. i type things i shouldn't and hit enter before i mean to and things come across half unsaid, completely misunderstood. if i could make words that meant something to anyone i wouldn't feel so anxious and so separate. i'm wasting all my time and the lack of ethos and activity is crushing in the weight of its emptiness and solitude.

Fish food for thought

2007-06-12T12:56:00.001-04:00

my response to grief is deep and immediate. in a way i could never anticipate or seek to fully understand. shocking in its suddenness. a desperate need to erase your existence. to pretend that it never happened, that i was never wrong, that you were never alive. i clean and cover and alter to make your life nonexistent, unimaginable, impossible. stealing away every memory and breath that was yours. leaving blankness and the hole deep inside me.

I didn't say this

2007-06-12T12:55:00.001-04:00

when you hate daylight, when you hate anything, you will develop a certain ambiguity about life and you get reckless in your habits.

- thom jones

Wednesday - It was cold

2007-06-12T12:54:00.000-04:00

i am cold.
i am tired.
my bones ache.
i set the alarm wrong and woke up too early.
the sleep that came after was fleeting, incomplete.
i felt better last night.
i feel worse today.
i am not in love.
(fond, but not in love)
i need rescue.
i need other.
i need else.

Saturday - Late at Night

2007-06-12T12:52:00.004-04:00

there was a boy i used to love. years ago. i was younger. softer. more unformed. more distressed. i loved him more than anything else. i hurt him, badly. he hurt me too. neither of us knew what we were doing. neither of us knew what wounds we would cause or how long they would take to heal. one day, he didn't love me anymore. he told me. i didn't believe him. we took a trip together. it was magical. we came home. the second i was back on solid ground i was in tears. i cried for over an hour. he left the next morning. the magic was gone. he repeated the words. i wrote him letters. he whispered "i don't love you" disconsolately in my ear. i bought him presents. he stopped talking. i believed him. he moved. we stopped speaking. he asked if we could still be friends. i said no. so we aren't. i haven't spoken to him in such a long time. so i dream about him instead. not every night. not even every week. more often than i would like. he has imprinted himself so indelibly on my heart and mind that there is no erasing him.

Tuesday - Also

2007-06-12T12:52:00.003-04:00

Every day, on the way to work, I pass the same woman. She is older, my mother's age probably. Every day, rain or shine, warm or cold, she is standing on the corner. She would be an ordinary woman with no one taking any notice of her, save for one thing. Every day she stands on the corner and blows bubbles. You know the ones I mean. The bubbles from your childhood. The shiny, soapy ones that held all the magic and the colors of the rainbow. Every morning, on my way to work, I drive through a window of bubbles. This is the life I am leading. These are the secrets that I've kept.

Wednesday

2007-06-12T12:52:00.001-04:00

today is wednesday. on wednesdays i see the trains. they are brown and creep past very slowly. i like to see the graffiti covering them. the colors appear almost luminous in these gray days. i wonder where they have been and where they are going. continuously traveling while I am still here, watching, static. i wonder if the graffiti is a secret message from one person to another. I wish I spoke that language. It makes me think of you, of your hands. The way I used to watch them trace the lines, on paper, on walls, on my skin. Your hands were luminous, the way the trains appear.

Thursday - Again

2007-06-12T12:51:00.003-04:00

i told you that i thought the dried mangoes smelled like horses. you looked at me the way you always do. i'm just some amusing counterpoint to your day. you never listen. there was the way they had that sharp and slightly bitter tang of sweat. how the dryness was like hay and was reminiscent of the dust kicked up on the track the entire summer i worked for a horse camp. you just laugh. you don't even know my life. you remember how it feels to be next to me at night, but nothing else. my memories are getting jumbled in my head. there's no one around to help me remember. i write things down in code i think i will understand, but it becomes something cryptic. if memories are linked to smells, as so many have hypothesized, i am not surprised at my confusion. this is how i was made. this is how i am.

Tuesday - Before

2007-06-12T12:51:00.001-04:00

On tuesday I found myself ambivalent about the desperation. It had recently begun creeping into my life, screaming for change, growth, direction, purpose, inducing a sense of panic and betrayal. On tuesday I separated it from myself and gazed, indifferently, laconically. The face was my own, but not my own. When you look into a mirror in a dark room. What is looking back at you? I was tired. The dreams had been worse than usual. The only thing I can recall is the repetition of "molak, molak, molak," as some sort of penance for being unloved. The vibrations were shaking my spine in minuscule increments. I am being altered without my consent. By the end of the day will I be taller, shorter? Will I still be me. I am always getting older. I can never again be who I was. It's disheartening to say the least. Among all the alterations, my frame remains the same. I sit and wilt. I sit and sigh. I sit and grow paler from the artificial light. I'm looking for shelter.

Monday

2007-06-12T12:50:00.000-04:00

today i was dressed like a bruise. my outside cloaked to match my inside. this weekend you took it all. piece by piece. carry me away. the sleepiness crept over me like the gray fog covering the valleys. my eyes close without the will to keep them open.

Thursday - Before

2007-06-12T12:49:00.002-04:00

last night i dreamt i was some sort of cowboy. i chain-smoked. i remember shaking the box of matches, and worrying that i only had a few left. this morning when i awoke, my fingers smelled like cigarettes.

Tuesday

2007-06-12T12:49:00.001-04:00

there is a place inside where i am still free. i can walk away at any time. i can run away if i still think running's faster. i have the money. i have the place to go. i have the time. i watch the dollars creep in increments. saving for a disaster that's already hit. saving for something i will never get. there is music playing. i hear noises and make believe. i am no angrier than i have ever been. i am no more lost than when i found you. i will drown my sorrow, day after tomorrow. i will drink away the thoughts that follow. i know you're out there somewhere, but you don't hear me call. these tins cans carry no sounds. find me. find me. find me.