you make peace with the bones or they make peace with you. you need to settle dust and learn to breathe because this moment of clarity is fleeting and before long you will be in the harsh light again.
All posts by manny@savo.us
reminiscence over and again
months later he realized why he could never let go of the sensation that he had already met her. he had: in a different place, a different time. and she had destroyed him then, broke open the world and revealed it all for what it was. she had taught him the second lesson, the first being handed down to him from his father. he had become estranged to it all at that point, a violent trembling that had racked through his body and he had been so terribly cold that his teeth had chattered in the spring sun. the last lesson would be the one he taught to himself, the turning away without stopping.
all that has been written on you, will happen again, and by your very own hand.
the walking man
i don’t know who the man is, where that particular voice comes from. i don’t know if he means me harm or does me good. but he comes, every so often, this hardened voice, this voice with no compromise or remorse. steady but thick like gravel. he knows all pain because he’s seen and lived through too much of it. i only know that he comes around from time to time to steady me, when i feel like a lost boy in search of his mother. he reminds me there are no mothers for men like us, there are no siblings, no family, no hope. he reminds me that ultimately everything is a choice, our loves, our friends, our words, and the choice is solely mine. then he goes, disappears into the ether, into the dark part of my mind where all the demons need tending. he disappears back into the woodwork and i move on.
you abandon this
you abandon this, like everything else. you leave things. undone, wrecked or even barely begun. works in progress, works of incompletion. walked away, without stopping, without ever turning back. with the sense that all that you’ve left behind is a narrow road of despair.
suicide math
not a day goes by where i do not calculate the math of my suicide. i tally 401k’s and savings accounts, i estimate funeral homes and burial plots. i pour over the fine print of insurance policies and the period before the dispersal of funds. and even in death, i still come out up short. the sum of it, or rather the difference is, ultimately my family cannot afford my death, cannot afford for me to pay what is truly owed.
valentine’s day massacre
i expect no valentine’s, i expect no promises. i’ve broken every one i have ever made, i’ve been broken down into unrecognizable parts. i sift through joints and fissures, i misalign and fail. nothing fits. i no longer fit. i am trying, i am still irrevocably broken, off set, a juxtaposition of betrayal, of something once human, once tender. i am hysteria and rage, i am the drowning thing out of the sea and gasping for relief. i’ve run out of denials, i draw strength from losing time, i draw strength from my time being short. i expect no valentine’s, i expect vengeance, i am pleading to be judged and rendered.
valentine's day massacre
i expect no valentine’s, i expect no promises. i’ve broken every one i have ever made, i’ve been broken down into unrecognizable parts. i sift through joints and fissures, i misalign and fail. nothing fits. i no longer fit. i am trying, i am still irrevocably broken, off set, a juxtaposition of betrayal, of something once human, once tender. i am hysteria and rage, i am the drowning thing out of the sea and gasping for relief. i’ve run out of denials, i draw strength from losing time, i draw strength from my time being short. i expect no valentine’s, i expect vengeance, i am pleading to be judged and rendered.
surface skin
I’m dead on the surface but I’m screaming underneath. – Coldplay, Amsterdam
and i wake out of storms to find the surface tension of your skin taut along the palm of my hand the beat of drum whose rhythm i ignored because i countered it with my own the echo space that mimics silence but explodes into grace
doing this to hide
she asks, are you doing this
are you doing this to hide her? and i said
no, no more her, of her, hiding her, i am not
i’m no longer hiding, hide me here
and i point to between her legs, i point
to the soft part of her neck where the skin plies
off the bone of her skull and i kiss her, hide me, i said
i’m doing this for you to keep me hidden
stage fright
you step forward, the spotlight finds you. glare pitch white, your skin pales, the crowd mutters to itself whispers of disbelief, of mocking. you gaze over stage right. he is there, waiting for the role you cannot suspend the crowd’s disbelief that you are him. she brushes past him, joins you on stage. another light, harsher, makes her red lips black. the crowd finally falls silent. you take her hand, place the other slightly above her hip. the pianist starts a tune, you begin.