(excuse this)
so long for me
to write,
“next time,
…a poem
or something.”
down
again
happier than i have
ever been
in darkness
with nothing
to reach out
but trying
to swallow me
down beneath the surface
this blanket
that covers
many places
left (or right)
to hide
from this
blunt.
i’m a little nervous
for the same reasons
you were pregnant
with an early grave.
i don’t seem to drown
from this beer
no matter how hard i try
the icy definitions
like i wished it upon myself
someone living
in my body
i can describe it to you
but it’s indescribable
pain.
i realize the short time passed
was rather long. “i promise,”
but that’s what we do.
you are here
by no choice
you have to be
as much as you hate
yourself
& the choices
they offer you
make your own
out of those
that are not
their principles
they don’t care
beyond the reflection
of this hell
of your own
meanings
camus says,
“increase your freedom”
we know we can
believe in no one.
and (to) think
my eyes
are closed
but have been open
reflecting sounds
(as) if they were
real
there are no real meanings
so it is useless
it whispers
in my ear,
“not much longer now”
i’m feeling pretty
within moments
you’ll see it
as a lie.
we live
by lying.
each day
we lie
by “we live
by lying.”
we can bring
our own lives
into nothing
or meaning.
you just have to say,
“fuck them”

You are waiting.

And as you are waiting, you notice the crisp morning air, the way sounds carry themselves in such air, just as crisp, but also lazy, still sleepy. It is morning, early, just before sunrise. You can see the first glows of day break behind the apartment complexes in the distance. Cement and dust, blue and dawn shaded gold. You are standing on a corner with others, silent. One of them is from Guatemala, where his aunt is a movie star. When he smiles, the gold cap in the front part of his lower jaw is dull. He is wearing worn jeans speckled with bits of plaster and paint, calloused hands tucked in the front pockets, grey sweater zipped halfway up, smudges at the elbows. His eyes are young, dark irises, chips of red from late night drinking at the edges, black hair cropped close at the sides. The other is older and understanding. He too had been somewhat important in his country, before he came to America. The older one listens and nods his head, speaking in a tone that is neither condescending nor lecturing. He is dressed in much the same way but is wearing a warmer jacket, zipped to the day’s growth on his neck, grey streaks in his longer hair.

You do not look that much different from them. Your skin is lighter, your hair is covering much of your face, scraggly, brushing your shoulders, black also. For a number of days, you have not shaved, and even if you are aware of each coarse hair on your cheek, you are not uncomfortable. The clothes you are in are worn thin and a size too large, jeans that have been patched with a back pocket torn, creases white at the knees and hips, a t-shirt with a ‘I love New York’ logo over a condensed skyline on its front, a barn jacket
taken from the Salvation Army, oil stained. You have done this before.

The three of you are standing on a corner of a main roadway that many trucks pass on, near a ramp for an expressway. The two are looking for work, falling silent when pick-up trucks, loaded with wood and workers turn, raising their hands. Both men indicate with their fingers how much they would work for, usually three, as the pick-ups swing by, hopeful, forced expressions of calm as the picks-ups continue without stopping, waiting a beat, each in their own minds, before resuming in Spanish. Three dollars an hour, and still one stops, says the older man, the younger man spews a number of litanies, contrasting his country and America. You do not speak with them and they do not mind, it is not unusual for someone to choose not to speak.

When you see the truck you have been waiting for, you wearily raise your hand, two fingers up. The younger and older man stare at you as the truck turns, then do the same. The truck stops, the three of you run, the two men smiling as they hop onto the back, greeting the few others that have gotten on before. In a flurry of hellos, how are yous, and good days, the two men you had been with also ask for how much the others are working for. A Mexican man, his hair unusually light brown, round face, dark, flat nose, crows feet at the corners of his eyes, spits, two, disgusted, but he is here. The chatter drifts into the rumbling and rattling of the truck, lost and dead. They are here to work, not for introductions. You do not take your eyes off the target, who is driving, for the first few minutes, there is always the chance you might be where you are not meant to.

It is a number of miles before the truck will reach its destination and it will not pick other workers. The target does not look into his rearview. You crouch along the bed of the truck, the others noticing your movement, most probably finding it strange, but say nothing and do not ask you questions that you would not answer. Kneeling at the back window of the cab, behind the driver, you remove the gun from the waistband of the jeans at the small of your back. One of the workers nervously mentions his children, but still nobody speaks to you. You imagine, despite their lack of vocal alarm, all their eyes are on you. With the gun in one hand, you shoulder off the coat, wrapping it around your arm, the barrel jutting out from it. The sun itself has not appeared over the horizon. You smash the back window, glass shattering, the truck jerks with the driver’s surprise, warm steel behind his ear, the driver steadies the wheel. He pays much attention to the rearview mirror.

“What the fuck is this shit? What the fuck? Who areWhat the fuck-” the target’s tone is indignant, so you gentle rub the muzzle against the hairline of his neck.

“..you are not in the position to ask questions.” you whisper, the target’s eyes jumping to the corners of his eyes, towards you, and the mirror and the road.

“Okay, okay, what’s this about, huh? What the fuck is this about?”

“‘..pay the men.”

“This about money? Some fuckin’ campecinos put you up to this, scrambled some pesos together for this shit?”

You repeat yourself, cocking the hammer of the gun, loud and harsh behind the target’s ear. “..pay the men.”

The target, one hand on the wheel, eyes on the road, reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a roll of bills, fives on the outside, hundreds within, a common practice. Just as the target is about to toss the roll through the broken window, you reach over and take it from his hands, the gun never leaving the target’s head. Without looking behind you, you roll the money in front of the worker’s feet, and without saying another word, they quietly divide the roll amongst themselves. The target, is at this point, driving in circles. One of the workers, the actress’ nephew from Guatemala, carefully taps your shoulder with your share.

“.. no gusto.” you wave the money away.

You tell the target to stop, the workers get off, stunned, perhaps feeling a bit dirtier even though they will be cleaner when they arrive home, with a week’s pays, instead of the normal, meager, day’s worth. They will not forget you and they will not speak of you, they do not understand much of this place called America, let alone your actions.

You tell the target to drive, you have a specific place in mind, and you tell where, and how to get there, warning him to not deviate from your instructions. By this point, the target is nervous, you have not answered any of his questions. The sun is bright, sharp, to your right. When you finally reach the car pound that does not open until nine, underneath a bridge, you tell the target to turn off the engine.

“..there was a general.” you begin.

“I have no fucking idea-this is crazy-”

“..who abandoned his troops-” your fingers touch his hair.

“Shut the fuck up, I don’t know-“, the target is beginning to sweat.

You grab the hair just above his neck tightly. “..it is impolite to-”

“You weren’t fucking there! You don’t know shit!”

“..your son was.”

The target’s eyes are wild, caged. Warm sun through the steel girders of the bridge.

You add, “..he lived.”

He breathes deeply, closing his eyes. “Where is, where is he?”

“”where you left him, legless.” you let go.

The target rests his head onto the steering wheel, shudders, sun and shadow across his back. His head snaps up, his back straightens, he turns to you. “Give me your gun.”

You shake your head.

“Give me the fucking gun!”, intense, determined, pathetic.

You raise the gun, inches from the target’s lips which have drawn themselves tightly. “..’don’t cry for me, Argentina’.”

“It was so long ago.” the target whispers, closing his eyes..

“..and imagine, he still cannot walk.”

The target opens his eyes, some new hope at the corners of his lips, “Tell him I love-”

You pull the trigger.

on your way out, her mouth was scarred screaming words
at you, but you could not hear her say anything
“how could you??” ,might have been one of them
or maybe that was the impression of her face that you remember when she stood
in the hallway between your bedroom and her kitchen, smashing
the plate behind your ear against the wall, flung at such a speed
that it had to have missed you, and the car keys
dropped from your fingertips, you were leaving
and she suddenly professed something that at one time you might have believed
it was love, but the words were awkward
to understand in a set of sentences you had her neatly in
and you had begun leaving her when she was squirming
to reach you.
she had managed the start of it with her body
in a room taking up so much space because you hadn’t been looking
only at her in the dark, she had insisted
on the door being closed and the bed sheets on the floor, a bottle to your lips,
it had not even been your room, a motel of her choosing, her forcing
your skin as to give you permission to drive into her
to such an extent that she was convinced
but you yourself had begun to question her and her taunting,
pushing herself into the cleft of your eye, the cubbyhole of your back
until you found that you could not breathe as she held
an ear to your throat where you made, what she called, “these funny little noises,
like you were about to die..”
that could not have been anything other than her coming and going of you.
always you had to struggle with her clothes and your wanting
and the twisted way in which she had slept with her back pushed against the wall,
so far away from your hands, and you realized that she was made up
solely of gestures.
“and what of it?” ,you had said
reaching down to pick up the keys along with the cigarette in your mouth
opening the last reason you had to keep moving
stretching the length between you and the bedroom, tearing her
to stand before you, another plate in her hand
but you went to her one last time, to break her
into tears and you hugged her still, moving the words away
from her mouth, your mouth to her ear, in the hallway
whispering, over and over, “..it’s over,
it’s over..”

You look in the mirror and it has grown on you: it’s getting older. The skin is different, darker, but not by shade. Darker because it is thicker, less bone can be seen.
It moves differently, it appeals to you and even though it is a complete stranger to you, it is a part of your life; it represents you and everyone recognizes it as you. Is this me?, you ask, in front of the mirror, regarding the skin, this you, this body that doesn’t feel like you, but that you like the feel of. You are different, you are immobile and every minute is spent on staring at a specific spot, intensely and in awe.
It is as if you are a surgeon in a morgue with a corpse-and despite the fact that you are not a pathologist-you are familiar with bodies, but this is a corpse, a once-was-a-body. You are in a morgue with a once-was-of-something-you-knew-of.
And, you, as a surgeon, while examining the corpse as if it was a living thing, find the things that do not make it body anymore, that which define it as a corpse. You want to know more of this once-was-what-you-knew-of but you are incapable, because you are who you are, in the wrong room with what you, only once, knew of.
To learn more than that, you have to be other than you, to become past that, a once-were also, and still be who you are. A doctor, a surgeon, a pathologist, but you leave the room with much effort.
This is how your eyes trace this skin, this set of flesh before you in the mirror, reflecting an other you, when you were equipt only to see yourself.
And with each entering and re-entering of this room, you are a little-less-of a surgeon, a little-more-of a pathologist. You leave to learn how to interpret this body by how others react to it. You learn of how it no longer breathes the same way, if at all. You learn that some of its reflexes are gone and it has acquired other characteristics you never knew of.
This newfound knowledge is neither pleasing nor comforting; nor is it disturbing or cause for panic.
You hardly believe what you see before you, is you, when the you, that you saw before, is no longer there to know as you. At one time, you were someone recognizable as, and to, yourself. You are still you, but you do not know yourself anymore. You are there replacing what you were because the texture has changed, it is suddenly other than the minute changes you have grown accustomed to, as you, before the you you see in the mirror. You are you that no longer is you. This is you, in the mirror. The skin is getting older.

..and there was no one to talk to me
i had hoped so,
it was preposterous
to lie, even if it didn’t happen
in any way i would have told it.
at least, Martha didn’t
mention it
in the morning
or perhaps she hadn’t noticed
it: she had mentioned that she was going
blind
but i didn’t believe her, eagle eyes she had
green and blue and gray and hungry, but now old
sitting still
by the radio, waiting for the mystery play
they stopped playing twenty years ago
..or had that been Jerry, before he went down to Florida
for the other glass
eye
to be put in
“fitted, they said..” he spit and hacked and shook
“..like it’s fit to do that.”
and he ran his hand over his cane, the other tight
around the handle, pressing his lips white
..i don’t think it matters, at least the moment
when i had gotten up
and noticed it staring at me:
a bit vicious, but polite. right there
first thing in the morning
a scar without introductions, familiar
with me and my habits, strong and deep.
..and so the scar had been with me
all day
quiet and noticeable, alarming passersby. in the park
a little girl wanted to touch it
and asked me if it would bite her hand off
her mother, they’re so young now they’re all so young,
pulled the girl along to other side
“..didn’t i tell you? didn’t i tell you to stay away from dirty old men..?”
but i think the mother said that because i had the impression
that there were moments when the scar smiled:
a smile that said, “I don’t give a shit anymore.”
something that Stanley would have said
if he had the chance to say something when they broke
into his house,
but he had been sleeping when they took the t.v.
and the doctors said it didn’t take much
pressure
from the pillow they must have put over his head
to knock a guy out at seventy-two.
we couldn’t believe that he didn’t outlive us
when he said he’d dance on our graves.
…and when i had thought about it
slowly, as slow as it gets these days,
i remember that Martha has been dead
too, but i can still hear her listening
for a mystery play on the radio.

“I can’t see what’s the point.” Tina said, flicking through the channels.
Peter snatched the remote out of her hand. “The point is you fucked him!”
“Listen,” Steve said, walking in from the kitchen, “I really had nothing to do and neither did she…”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this. I really can’t believe I’m still here.” Tina rolled her eyes. “I’d like to just once have no regrets about who I sleep with.”
Steve looked puzzled as he plopped onto the couch, next to her. “What other regrets?”
Peter threw the remote at Steve. “You thought you were the first?”
“I have that effect on boys” Tina sighed, getting up.
“She’s that good, Steve?” Peter asked, his face desperate and a little broken.
“Hold on,” Steve said to Peter, holding up a finger, calling out to Tina. “What’s with the boy comment?”
Tina poured herself a glass of wine.
“Three years and not even a kiss..” Peter muttered.
“Three years?” Steve was shock. “You sorry bastard.”
Peter snapped back, “”Three minutes, Steve? Who’s a sorry bastard?”
Steve closed his eyes. “You told him?”
Tina shrugged. “I was really upset about the whole thing Stevie.”
Peter put his face in his hands. “I can still imagine the scene, with your Bugs Bunny boxers around your ankles apologizing.” He looked up at Steve. “I must admit, stress over your dog’s neutering appointment is original.”
Tina chuckled and poured herself another glass.
Steve turned a deep red that neither Peter or Tina thought possible.
Tina tugged at her tank top, suddenly irritated. “When are we going to bury this conversation among other fruitless ventures ?”
“I’d like to know when am I going to get the chance to bury my head underneath your sheets.” Peter shook his head.
Steve regained his composure. “Wait a minute…Did Tina ever know about your feelings for her?”
Peter looked at Steve deadpan. “It’s one of the only reasons why we’re friends.”
“What??” Steve glared at Tina.
Tina glared back. “It’s none of your business.”
“But-”
“It really isn’t.” She cut him off and turned her back, disappearing back into the kitchen.
“It’s times like these my therapist warned me about…” Peter paced the living room, his face still in his hands.
“Oh please.” Tina stepped out of the kitchen and sat on the dining room table.
“Do you mind?” Steve said, regarding his table.
Tina looked down at either side of her. “It’s a bit hard but considering it’s wood, it’s to be expected.”
Steve paused, then looked at Peter, who was still pacing, and Steve didn’t care if he was crying or not. “You love her and she’s like this?”
Peter spun around, his arms waving. “You DON’T love her, you don’t even KNOW her and YOU SLEPT WITH HER??! Who are YOU to judge ANYONE??”
Steve scratched his head. “I really don’t know what to make of all this.”
Peter was pacing again, mumbling.
“It’s simple,” Tina said, crossing her legs. “I was horny and you were around and everything else from there on was a bit of a disappointment. Now,” Tina then pointed to Peter, “He’s upset because he’s been hard up for me for a little while now-”
Peter dropped his hand from his face. “A little while?”
Tina looked at him, “Look. If you think three years is a long time to wait for me then you know nothing about me mister and I suggest you give up all hope as of now.”
Steve had never seen a man shrivel up before but Peter proved that such things do happen. It wasn’t anything anyone could have pointed out on the surface, but Steve knew Peter, albeit briefly, and this was it: Peter looked broken by the way all the weight, all one hundred and ninety pounds, just dropped out of him.
Steve turned and for some reason, even if he really never liked Pete to begin with, always moody and always too loud, Steve became angry with Tina and to hell to how tightly she could wrap her legs around him. “You got some nerve.”
Tina then pointed to Steve and he could almost feel that jab on his chest. “You, minuteman. I have no problem with the fact that you weren’t a raging bull. I enjoyed everything up to that point and was kind of expecting it.”
Steve didn’t know whether to smile or not.
“What I wasn’t expecting,” Tina continued and then the tone of her voice lowered, softened, “..was for you to come up with some lame excuse about it.”
Tina lowered her head. “Not everyone is some sort of piston and the ones that are, are the ones that like to hurt you with it.”
This was a rather sudden turn, not what anyone expected. Peter had looked up. Steve fell very silent and felt very guilty and couldn’t understand why. Then again, there was very little that Steve did understand about someone he barely knew, but had slept with.
But Peter caught on, regrettably, recognizing the tone in Tina’s voice, and it was one that he had not heard often. Instead of leaving it up to her, which had always been, Peter assumed, a bit harder than other things, he gave Steve a reason. “Tina’s first time,” Peter stopped, looked towards Tina for affirmation, or a sign for him not to continue. There was none, which meant, knowing Tina, it was okay, he could talk about this. “She was about seventeen and a little drunk. It was a house party and no, we were all really smashed and there was this guy there, a senior who had quite a rep and well, Tina wanted to find out…”
Peter looked at Tina and Tina nodded her head, but she remained silent, looking far off, past the corner of the living room.
“I walked in on them. She was missing for an hour or so and I got worried. I didn’t really know her then, I was going out with this girl, Suzanne, but it was my house.” Peter paused, glanced at Tina, then looked straight at Steve. “He was raping her. He said he wasn’t, but she couldn’t have let him… I mean it looked like he was practically strangling her, pinning her arms, pinning her. I tried to stop it and he decked me.” Peter laughed halfheartedly, exhausted just by the retelling, “I introduced Tina to one of my closest friends and he raped her…”
Tina straightened her back and whispered, turning both Peter and Steve’s heads. “He tossed me a nickel on his way out.”
Peter looked at Tina and his eyes were wet.
Steve bowed his head and ran his fingers through his hair. “oh..shit…”
They stayed where they were, breathing in that quiet way that people do at funerals, or during moments of silence, the room quieter than it would have been if it had been empty. Then Tina slid off the table and walked to Peter, taking hold of his arm, then turned and stood in front of Steve, her other hand outstretched. “Nice place, but it’s a bit stuffy. Let’s go for some fresh air.”