| disconnect |
[May. 4th, 2006|07:14 pm] |
My favorite and most heartbreaking sort of writing is the kind that perfectly distills and preserves what it's like to be profoundly and helplessly alone; the quiet inescapable sadness of it, the desperation and anger and perfidious tentative hope of loneliness.
I've been wanting to say that to someone this entire day. |
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| afterwards |
[Aug. 31st, 2005|09:24 am] |
how are you going to live today?
i can't get it out in words, the answer's
all tangled up in images and moments -
sometimes i see myself walking between
skyscrapers with a camera in hand and
pen in the other, as if i'll make things
better by trying to document the rise of
humanity and everything dirty beautiful
grotesque that i spot on grey streets in
grey cities. other times i'm lying on
someone's carpet with my feet propped
up on a chair - the music's loud but not
too loud and we've got a bottle of vodka
next to us on the floor and we're not saying
much but still being honest for once, so the
words come slow and easy and nobody's
afraid, what with the darkness outside
our windows and the wailing, screaming joy
of the voice ripping from the speakers.
those nights don't last. or maybe i'll be
one of those college kids you see sitting
outside at a table by an anonymous cafe,
drinking coffee with too much cream and
alternating between reading old books and
watching people walk by me, memorizing
the way their mouths curve when they
speak or the set of their shoulders and neck.
those things say it all. i could be an actress
on the stage five blocks south of you, filled
to the brim with bravado and mouth red, or
maybe a singer in some local band playing
that friday night, my skirt a little too short
and hair chopped bluntly against my neck.
the next person you bump into between
the library shelves, the girl who comes over
to your table and takes you order (pancakes
and eggs but no sausage), the quick flash
of a face by the corner of your eye. how are
you going to live today? i don't know, i don't
know. i'll do it any way and every way i can. |
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| ivy and stones. |
[Aug. 30th, 2005|10:43 am] |
it was an english summer. your ankles
patterned with light struck through
the leaves, arms bare and a little on
the pale side. the sun was the soft kind,
inviting, kind on the eyes; rain came as
mist in late afternoons, a gentle fog that
swallowed the grounds and left dew
the next morning. we wore freshly-washed
linens and silk, sat in the grass and didn't
worry about stains; ate sandwiches while
walking between the rows of plants in
the garden, our hands soon painted green.
i wrote letters home on heavy paper, its
surface faintly ridged beneath my fingertips,
a pen resting heavy with expectation.
the words were bland, unseasoned - there
was no reason to tell them about the long
days that stretched away from sight,
the gentle air and perpetual scent of flowers
that hung poised in it, the cool, darkened
rooms with marble floors and mirrors, the
timelessness of youth and something beautiful.
no, there was no reason to tell anyone about
the fold of your hands against leather reins
or the way the sunlight fell on the side of
your face; no reason to divulge the secrets
of your laughter, the way time slowed into
nothingness, perfectly captured and preserved. |
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| flag down. |
[Aug. 29th, 2005|11:38 am] |
i.
the docks were empty that day.
ghosts of wet footprints faded
from sight and the water still
with beauty and death. it had
been in the newspaper delivered
to your back step - girl, seven,
pretty, drowned. missed. foul
play had been stamped across
the tableau, the photograph of
an empty lake, of a pair of white
sandals lined up at the edge of -
at the edge. the trees closed in,
carnivorous and tall, cast shadows
on the sky, the water, your face.
ii.
(your father took you fishing once
a year from four to sixteen. twelve
days spent with your feet skimming
the algae off the lake and you don't
recall much, maybe the viscous
squirming of worms between your
small hands, the resistance of their
skin against the point of a hook,
momentary, before the metal slid
in easily. slick and wet. the two of
you didn't bother with words, not
even when you were older. the pine
trees and creaking boats and splash
of bait into the dark, clear water did
it for you. it was the only time you
spent with him, hunting in silence.)
iii.
you can still feel the muscles in
your hands seizing, involuntary,
echo of an action. the sensation
of your thumbs pressing against
a soft neck, pale, windpipe thin
and easy to find; the hard ridge
of her collarbones pressed against
your forearms, soft bump of bone
at the base of her neck. you can
see it, even now. it's easy to picture.
her skin, pale against yours. nails
pink and even, eyes wide, mouth
thin. the slow sinking curve of her
arms in the water, white skirt wet
and tangled, drifting; the violent,
giddy satisfaction of surrender. |
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| mouth of the sky. |
[Aug. 28th, 2005|04:21 pm] |
i spent five days driving to reach you, five
mornings and afternoons and heavy honey
evenings traversing the mexican coast with
one hand on the steering wheel and the other
cupping the dense breeze, letting ashes slip
between bones and flesh and into the sea.
my mother died the day after you had left
and now i'm alone in her '86 cadillac,
overpriced urn filled with dust next to me and
half a dozen outdated cassette tapes of
billie holiday, the scratchy itching low-fi sound
of heartbreak. a pine air freshener still hangs
from the rearview mirror. it smells like bleach
from where i'm sitting, bare foot on the gas
pedal and the sun low in the sky, painful in
my eyes. i drive and drive and drive. through
the hills, next to the dirty salty beaches, past
tunnels covered with graffiti and markets
selling mangoes and fake purses and drugs.
five days of bottled water and occasional
meals where i find myself sitting solitary,
feet on wooden chairs in hole-in-the-wall
establishments, tears like needles in my
eyes from the red pepper flakes and tabasco
sauce and nothing else. five days of unknown
accents slipping into my blood, of dusky
skin and black hair flashing by the corners
of my eyes. five days of porcelain emptying
steadily in the passenger's seat and melodies
about regret, five days of missing you and
not much else, of leaving life behind. |
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| hiding. |
[Aug. 27th, 2005|06:14 pm] |
Thumbs tucked into back pockets.
Narrow hips and easy, violent hands.
Shoulders soft, kind against the linoleum.
He's like that on weekdays, deceptive,
easy to love. You want to stand by him,
a step behind with your heels nicking
the outlines of his shadow under the
early morning sunlight. It's always bright
where you are, light everywhere - artificial
and unrevealing, the sort of light that's
kind to liars and hiders. You're neither,
you tell yourself, and dress all in black
to match him, but nothing you own
is as exquisitely dark as the spread of
fabric around his shoulders, crisp and
spotless, cruel enough for some semblance
of beauty. That's fine by you. You wouldn't
have it any other way. Mornings are spent
out on the rooftops, paint chips flaking
onto your hands as you grip the green
railings, the sky anonymous and unfeeling
above your head. You can feel it pressing down.
He's standing on the edge of
the building, feet narrow and arms crossed
and he tells you come here so you
do and when you're walking over, you think
that you'd jump off if he'd ask, that you'd
break your bones and shatter your skull
so he could see the beauty of dark clothing
and red liquid against the white pavement from
seven stories up, and he says what are
you going to do with your life and you
look at your knuckles and say i'll do what
you do and all he does is place both
his hands on either side of your neck and close
his eyes and you're thinking, you're breathing
one two three one two three and thinking
this means you trust me, this means you --
because you could lose your balance right now
and you'd both fall to your deaths and make
worthwhile news for the first and last times
in your lives, you're breathing and thinking
when he opens his eyes again and steps away
from the edge, steps away and walks away
and doesn't look back. Yeah. It's like that.
(What you don't realize is that he's never
cared much for grabbing life and holding
onto it, that he thinks you're a fucking coward
because you'll never do anything to hurt him,
that he's the only honest person you've ever
known because he never says a single
goddamned thing that means anything.)
Afternoon and you find him leaning against
a wall, watching the cars drive by. Thumbs
tucked into back pockets. He walks away and
you follow him this time. You're back to
treading on the fringes of his shadow again.
His shadow, growing longer, light growing
darker, the weight of love in your chest
growing deadlier, his face growing older. |
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| white picket fence. |
[Aug. 26th, 2005|04:11 pm] |
We used to play at being grown up
when we were younger, in your mother's
bedroom with the lights dimmed and
her old phonograph on, playing Nancy Sinatra
and jazz from two eras ago. You'd always
go for the lipstick first, swiped it on with
deadly and purposeful accuracy, the color
of it redder than the inside of your mouth
in winter, the shine of it oily and daringly
glamorous at the time. I wasn't quite as
brave. You had said that it taste like
medicine, like the chalky little tablets
your mother took to fall asleep at night.
I asked you how you knew and you just
smiled with those fire hydrant red lips
before falling into loud giggles that smudged
the outline of red into messiness. You wore
white satin gloves and we'd write messy
messages with her fountain pens. The ink
would spread uncertainly across heavy paper,
our letters curved and childish. I dared you
to eat paper once, told you it was a vegetable
because it came from a tree. You'd done it
just to make me panic and tell you that I'd lied.
Here we are now, skirts tight at our waists
and rings heavy on our fingers. The records have
been gone for a decade, your mother and her
mysteries, her perfumes and bottles, a little less.
We used to play at being grown up and
now we are, the sheen of lipstick and
our white smiles hiding a thousand little
cracks and failures, trepidation sinking
into our stomachs and love in our mouths,
mouths that stay closed for fear of letting
it spill out, love that's there for the taking
if only we were as mindlessly courageous
as we were fifteen years ago, if only
someone would say a word, the word. |
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| grown up. |
[Aug. 25th, 2005|07:52 am] |
you died on a sunday.
it had been seven years since we'd
last shared whiskey and virginia slims
under the gentle press of southern dusk,
the darkening air and bursting smell
of peaches between us, around us.
i saw the pictures on the headline news.
your body sinking, bloody and thin,
into the palestinian soil. your face
masked into some amalgam of horror
and kindness. hands still curled. it had
been seven years, and you'd traded in
nicotine and alcohol for grenades and
anonymity, for hope, for an honorable
death. that's what you'd say, at least.
'it's not about hate. it's about freedom.'
i had trusted you at the time, the you
of that time - twenty one and old
enough to know better, twenty one
and charming, carelessly flush with
the golden shield of belief. twenty one
and you felt that you owed your life
to something, that you needed something
to die for. i'm simplifying, of course.
i'm simplifying you and six decades of
tragedy, you and three thousand boys
dying for liberation, you and the poverty
that had walked around you in the streets
of a holy land. i'm simplifying, but there's
nothing quite as simple as the sight of
a body on television - skin still pale,
the trees cut down all around you;
you with nowhere left to hide, you with
the sign of a god upon your chest,
you, out in the open, unburied, dead. |
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| surgery. |
[Aug. 24th, 2005|09:58 am] |
they cracked open your chest just to see
what was inside. i don't know what i
expected - sleek machinery and smiles
and words, maybe. he'd said, something
red, like love, like living. i'd called him a
romantic. we both expected more than
we got: i something beyond humanity,
he something like courage. what we got
was a heartbeat that matched our own,
blackened lungs, cold blood. milk white
bone. you were sewn back up with black
thread, muscles melted together and
whole again. we were ushered out of
the room with disappointment riding
high in our throats, measuring our pulses. |
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| antiquity. |
[Aug. 23rd, 2005|09:49 am] |
the curtains draw shut. it's an old theatre,
and a few years from now, even months,
the dust will turn red velvet brown and
ropes will be fraying. the silence will have
grown too heavy to throw off, too dense
to sweep away or punctuate with vapid
words. even now, you find it hard to speak.
the lights stutter out of existence without
grace, the chairs are folded up and stacked
away, rows of seats uniformly empty and
worn down. the slice of light on the wooden
floors shrinks and disappears as the doors
are pushed closed. blinks out. you can
already see the ghosts of words and tears
and a thousand different characters sink
breathily out of the rafters, the dark corners
that no one ever cleans, the wood work that
hasn't been polished for decades. it stays
dark in the room, but you could swear that
a hundred years of failed emotions and thin
music would light up the stage again, that if
you lit a candle, you would see the soft
illumination of misty edges, of people who
only ever existed inside costumes and words
written by the dead, the famous. |
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