matters of confusion from delving into the pain. we all weep wonders. and there the significance: his yowl, her ache, the crack in their mother’s spine, their father’s immutable impatience. how thorny, pricks of the skin, she tousles the sheets, wraps herself into suffocating and roaches crawl across newly stained wood floors, skittering legs that slip and slide with little traction. but they get away, they get away.
Monthly Archives: September 2008
safe enough
and it surges up and anger all rage all frustration the incompetence in me the vile and viciousness and gnashing of teeth i yell at the little one i snarl at her annoyed at the intervention annoyed with my loss of control and i barely have a grip on any of it and they all think i already where my heart on my sleeve when they don’t know how much of it i keep in check how much of it i swallow how much of it bounces around in my head but i never feel safe enough to let it all out i never feel safe enough
or me
we are at the worst it has ever been in this country: home foreclosures, bank closings, credit crisis and nothing to shore up the underpinnings of the economy in sight except for the government. in a week, my son turns one. little over a month away we face a historic election where an african american is running against a ticket with a female vice presidential candidate, the first for republicans. my daughter and i rock out to chemical brothers while my son laughs in glee as i bop about. she cries in the car because i talk of how i desperately long for self-oblivion but cannot because of her and the children.
& the world goes round & the world spins & i cannot save them from any of it-
or me
at the end of each
the tensions pulling me apart, keeping me whole. i was told, often enough, i was a pain junkie, that i got off on it, the pitch of despair, the dark rebellion. i really need to rewrite all of this, but life isn’t like that, there is no rough draft, only unwieldy appendages, unyielding. it’s all quite alright if you circle the rim and not get caught up in the tide. it’s nonsense i know, but it comforts me like nothing else, not even the bottle or the bed or the fleeting oblivion promised by each.
hands of thorns
down the rabbit hole we go, hand in hand, arm in arm, off to see the wizard and have a bed time story read. there are three things to remember two of which i’ve forgotten but the least important of which is never to forget the other two and i smelled something that was intestinal and it was good. here we go again with the levees bursting around us and an undefinable anger permeating the sheets. i’d keep it safe and sound if my hands weren’t made of thorns.
the alternative shatters me into rage
but the alternative shatters me into rage and tears and remorse and an overwhelming sense that you were meant to be alone, that all the nightmares are going to come true, and there is a comfort in that, that you were ultimately right.
how absurd, how absolutely insane.
rigmarole
rigmarole, how do you spin, spoon fed on codependency and nostalgia? you are so beautiful, like an over turned car set aflame in the middle of the highway with no causalities. honesty is brutal and such a weapon in the right hands. he swung it against me such force that my forehead exploded into something not quite human. we stream this all through the night, tossing and turning and never coming back again.
disappearing
how romantic to cleave yourself out of a life. how utterly selfish and cruel. I cannot rewind or undo or forge forward. but i am suffering, they are suffering. i cannot reach out to her. i can barely reach them. i do not want to be reached. i am failing at this. i am a failure. i have failed you all.
slap images
play fetch:
man coerces dog to pee into urinal loaded with moth balls
which he then proceeds to swallow one by one
royal roast:
king visits royal stables to select hog for tonight’s roast
then proceeds to rutt with it while giving it a reacharound
blow her mind:
man cuts off the top part of his lover’s skull
then proceeds to fuck the crack
between the left and right parts of her brain
structural damage
i have built this tremendous thing, it is awe inspiring, it takes up all this room. more importantly, lives depend on it. so many lives wrapped and entwined. i study the foundation. she says to me, you’ll have ruined my life. i take a step back but do not know how to admire it any longer. it presses on me. but i do not know if the fault is with my sight, the time of day i’ve decided to regard it, or the structure as a whole. what i do know is that i can never rebuild such a thing again: it’s taken me far too long.