I don’t know how, how we got caught and ended up here, but we did. She said we didn’t have a choice, and she was one who was big on choices and freedom and all that. It kind of broke me when she had given up, even if she was screaming at the end, bloody defiant she was. But you could tell the fight had left her before that. She was just screaming to get it out of her system, to get it into the open just one last time because we had expected her to. For the morale, she might have said, but we knew better and she knew too. Funny how we fall into habits, even in the face of it, even when there’s no point to it anymore.
They had beaten us and that wasn’t enough for them, those were the rules. And yet, she still struggled, strapped in the chair, they nearly took her head off to shut her up. They thought that we were going to get riled up and they would have none of that, I myself couldn’t shed a tear for her, neither could the others. We all just hung our heads, our hands wrapped around the bars. We had stood all rather quickly, I think that was what had set them off, that’s what got them going a bit quicker. Putting more of a shoulder into each blow, but we were just standing out of respect. What else could we do, barely any skin on us, mostly bones, and broken at that. We knew that this was it, she couldn’t make it through another round, she had a hard time just keeping it altogether and that was just for us, to keep our heads straight on what this was about. It was a good show, she had said, smiling, her mouth bloody before they took her for the last time, they had been at it since the morning. We did, didn’t we, I had said, and then they opened the cage.
They weren’t smiling, this wasn’t a good time for them either, or if it was, it was decent of them not to show it. They were all business and dark gloves at their sides, standing, knowing that this was the good-bye part between me and her. I had helped her up, putting my arm around her, my hand on right where her bottom rib was and it gave under my fingertips, almost into her stomach. She winced and I didn’t want to do this, help her up into their hands anymore, but she nodded that it was all right, steadying herself against me, rising. She kissed me then, before they would take her hand and lead her out like a lady of the court, her blood on my lips, without another word of it.
The others were watching the two of us closely, waiting for some sort of sign, like it might’ve been the last go for all, if there was going to be any. She had trouble walking but they were very patient, very respectful, they had wanted her in the beginning, made her some outrageous offers, castles and islands in the sky and all that. They told tell her how wrong she was, what a mistake for her to have picked the losing team, how it hurt them to be doing this. She called them poofs and bastards and twits, laughing until the next blow fell, and they reminded her some more.
It didn’t matter who was next after that. I think it was Jimmy who first volunteered, after they snapped her neck and they were done with her, that’s when we started crying. All very quiet, most of us were still men, hung up on those notions. He was the youngest of us, and her son, but it wasn’t until there was barely a handful of us that we started putting up a fight. Garcia had his brains blown onto the back of his cell when he wouldn’t get up from his corner. No, he kept saying, they were jerking him up from his shoulders, Nonono. Until one of them who was pulling up just got sick of the sight, dropping Garcia and whipped out his gun, putting him as out of his misery without preamble.
Jonathan had managed to knock a couple of teeth out from a few of them, and they decided to play along, letting him even get as far as out of the cell. But when he looked up and down the corridor for a direction in which to go, one of them leapt onto his back, and both fell, Jonathan face first. They beat his bald head onto the cement until it was a wet sound. Lucille had scratched as many as she could, they didn’t seem to mind, maybe they even understood it. Surprisingly they hadn’t raped her, as they had with the others, the first ones that were sent in years ago. They calmly dragged her out of her cell, by then, she was wailing, offering her body. In front of my cell, they stopped and made her face me as they stood behind her.
I’ll do anything, Lucille had said, her face puffed out and ridiculously bruised. Tell them, with anyone of them, anything. She reached for the bars of the cell and pulled herself closer, panting, Tell them. I shook my head and stared at the floor. It was no use and I couldn’t let her do that, especially not after Jonathan, as a matter of principle. I couldn’t bear the thought that I had helped her do it. Bastard, she had said and she spat in my face, just above my lips, the blood on them already dry. Then she spun around, spreading her legs, writhing, hoping that they’ll catch her meaning, as she reached to undo her belt. Before she even got to the first clasp, they shot her dead.
I had been the last, they stopped with Lucille, and by that time, my ears were ringing, I couldn’t hear my own breathing, if I was still breathing, if I still could breathe. I kept touching my mouth mostly, until the next day, when one of them had come to the cage and unlocked the door, they hadn’t moved any of the bodies, still lying where they were killed. I hadn’t responded, or I hadn’t heard him, so he came into the cell and had stared at me, I think. He must’ve, I could see his shadow stretch across the floor and stop by my feet. Then his hand was under my chin and he had gently lifted it, that’s when I had first gotten the shakes, still to this day at the slightest touch they’re there. He had lifted my face and pointed to the opening between the bars, speaking in the Queen’s English. I don’t remember exactly what it was, just that he had said something I understood, in a language I hadn’t heard in years, and there was the door.

at the moment
she opens
a door
and as she holds you
into another room,
it is neither your room
nor her door
but her hand
that is turning
your eye
away
from the key
to the door
that you are
rooming in.
you wonder
how she unlocks
you
from the doorframe
you have locked
yourself
out of.
her skin comes
out of the fingering
of a latch
just under your lips
where her lips are
touching.
pushing her hair back
away
from her neck
you understand
much more openly
the door.
she is a key
at the tips
of your fingers
whose shape
you can not help
but want
to fit
into the narrow slot
of your fingerbones.
the short gasp
and smile
that escapes her mouth
moves further
than your ear
into the keyhole
your ear is
resting on.
you rest
your mouth
on her skin
to warm the room
before the moment
you walk
into a room
where she is
breathing.
as you press
your skin
against the walls
of the room,
she welcomes you
into her skin
where your bones
curve
around the frame
of herself
and her hands
fold
over your back.
a lock of her hair
tumbles across
her face
onto yours.
when you finally breathe
yourself
into the room
with her fingertips,
the latch of your bones
closes
your eye
the moment
her skin
crosses yours.
you find yourself
suddenly
to be a room
where she finds
comfort in feeling
the walls
of your skin pressed
against her own.
every smell
of yourself
reminds you
of her, the her
that reminds you
so carefully
the color-
full-smell
of you
with her
in a room
without doors.

i cannot stop the thought
in the conflict, there was meaning
and there was a reason, there wasn’t no reason
who was there to take your place?
some die just to live
and i know that, i know
i don’t want to stay
at home, drawing pictures
until my eyes go blind
i don’t want to come back down from this cloud
its taken me all this time
but i fell on black days
and every word is nonsense
it’s always the same
whiskers in the sink
stripped and torn mom
cannot stay long
clearly i remember
this is not for you
i did, what i had to do
one day you will ache like i ache
i got scratches all over my arms
since i fell apart
for you to speak to me
i am myself, like you, somehow
something that mommy wouldn’t wear
did you think you’d be so cold?
once upon a time, i could control myself
turn a new life over
but now it’s a little late
whatsoever i feared, has come to life
i wish i would have met you
i think you’re kind of neat
you are someone else
but i’m a creep, i’m a weirdo
i’m the pusher, i’m the whore
don’t even think about getting inside
i’m still right here
the needle tears a hole
one for each day
how much difference does it make?
try to kill it all away, but i remember everything
i wait up in the dark
this will be the day
to let a young man to die
i focus on the pain
this is how i go out tonight
take a good look
i can’t live here anymore
try to forget this.

Characters:
Shadow
Man
Woman
Setting:
A bare stage. Two old wooden chairs. Dust on the stage, on the chairs. Dim lights. No props. Just the chairs and dust. Silence.
STAGE LEFT. A man walks into the background. Because the lights are dim and are focused center stage his features are not seen. He is SHADOW.
SHADOW
How is silence defined? By minutes, by
absence, by uncomfortableness…
STAGE RIGHT. A young man stumbles center stage, into the light. He falls, looks about wildly, then slowly stands.
SHADOW
By not being silence defined? White rush.
MAN cannot hear SHADOW. IN THE AUDIENCE. WOMAN stands, looks around her, dazed. She also cannot hear SHADOW.
WOMAN
What is this place? Excuse me! Hey, is this a
play?
MAN
(dusting himself off, pauses, looks at WOMAN)
No. (bends and wipes dust off his legs) No, I’m
sorry it’s not….(The young man straightens up and
examines the stage. He then walks a small circle,
remaining in the circle of spotlight). You’d figure
after a lifetime there would be more than a bare
stage…Is this all that I’ve amounted to?
WOMAN
Excuse me, what are you talking about?
SHADOW
An unbearable weight of freedom rests upon
shoulders unsculpted and feeling whole or should
I?
MAN
I’m talking about this (raises his arms and turns
slowly around, moving clockwise from center to left
center, back left, until back to center) I’m talking
about us. About the emptiness of the stage.
WOMAN
(leaning forward, as if she was trying to hear better)
Is this some sort of joke? What kind of play is this?
Where’s the setting? Where’s the orchestra or, or the
playbill booklet they give you?
MAN
(arms crossed in front of him)Program books are not
given to the actors. They’re supposed to already know
the story…(he points to her) You’re an actress…
You are the woman in the audience who doesn’t know
where she is and why, and wants no part of the stage.
You’re the woman whose image has haunted his mind and
never became real. You’re the one who he has been
writing all this time for…
SHADOW
Is the cheek intentional or implied by the shadow
of noise? There are puzzles and nuances that trace
your lips, but I haze.
WOMAN
(hands up in front, palms out, in a ‘slow down’
gesture, shaking her head) Look, I’m just lost, okay?
Where’s the exit?
MAN
(head tilted) Do you really think you can escape a
writer’s last living thought? Especially when it’s the
one that defines you and gives you life?
WOMAN
I’m supposed to go.(makes her way down the row, towards
the right aisle) There must be things I have to do
besides listen to this.
MAN
(walks to center right, matching her pace) You
have no place ‘to’ go. You’re already here.
WOMAN
What? (stops, confused then closes eyes abruptly shakes
her head), no…(slowly, eyes closed) I WILL get out of
here. I WILL walk out of this place and find where I AM
and go HOME and FORGET all this nonsense about dying
HEMMINGWAYS. (opens her eyes and looks in either
direction more frantically)
MAN
(kneels down, resting his arms on his knees, touching
the floor fondly, as if it will be missed) You will not
find an exit. (looks up at WOMAN, sadly) The only exit
for us will be the fall of these curtains and the
lights going out and the fade to black. After that
there will be no more stage, no more chairs, no more
anything. The writer will be dead and that will end it
before–
SHADOW
(expectantly) Unheard cues of bare…
Why is the world spinning? A jazz player that knows
this: Seeking, pausing, giving, tempo, rhythm my bones
to have felt a stillness.
The MAN does not speak but covers his face with his hand as the WOMAN freezes, peering at MAN.
WOMAN
(approaching closer to the stage, down the right
aisle) Before what? (louder and closer) I’m talking to
you, before what?!
SHADOW
(hurried rasp) Speeding cacophony of trumpets
sputtering debris and stutter stoplights shimmer
but a final grasping.
WOMAN
(stopping suddenly as if hit in the chest and doubling
over, clearly in pain) UGH-shit!-uuggh…
Three of the stage lights that are focused center shut off.
WOMAN
(whispering, just getting back her breath, terrified)
what…what just happened?
MAN
His heart just stopped…Look, (points) one of
the bulb have blown out…(stands, rubs his head,
frustrated, with both hands) I don’t care for roles
anymore. I feel so apart from him but I can’t live on
my own. (shaking his head, sighing, hands to his face)
He’s dying and I’ve accomplished nothing.(Pulls his
hands away from his eyes, looking at her, pauses,
then drops his hands from his whole face) You’re still
not on stage. You’re still apart but refusing his
existence in the moments that his life, our existence
means the most.
WOMAN
(tense, afraid) I don’t understand…I’m sorry,
I just don’t.
SHADOW
What of this, place this time, how? Do we remain
changed of, of myself…
WOMAN
(hugging herself) I won’t take part in something that
I’m not ready for. I know this much about myself and
who I want to be…(defiantly now) Can’t I have that
much? I don’t care if I’m some old man’s wet fantasy or
not. I don’t care. (places her hand in front of her at
waist level, palms down almost touching each other and
spreads them apart in a straight line away from each
other quickly, similar to umpire calling safe) I’m apart
and (pointing to teaser) when those curtains that you’re
so hung up about drop, it will please me to be where I am.
MAN
(hands out, bent at elbows in a pleading gesture)
Shouldn’t the cause of us be granted his final wish?
WOMAN
(pointing to the floor) And what if this is his wish?
What if this is what he wants? To have us apart,
or have parts be apart from himself when he dies?
SHADOW
The what and when of the stage is significant.
Most of the lights snap off, leaving only four, three of which are dimming. SHADOW slowly steps forward but still cannot be clearly seen. At that moment, the MAN snaps his head up and closes his eyes, as if he is concentrating.
MAN
(as if seized) You do not understand. We ARE parts that
ARE apart of. We live IN not THROUGH him. WE are
voices always speaking and laughing and crying and above all,
are heard. He has inspired us in sentences and phrases. He has
gone out to touch us through the writing. He deserves for us
to leave with him. HERE, on this stage… (SHADOW steps back,
MAN bows his head, opens his eyes, pauses) Without him, we
would have never known the sound of our voices.
WOMAN
(clearly moved, arms tight around herself, starts to
speak but hesitates)…I, I don’t want to die.
MAN
We are not dying. He is and there’s no time left.
The one light that has remained starts to fade. The WOMAN stands, tense, unsure, facing the stage. The MAN remains on stage, facing her. The curtains fall, gliding down slowly. WOMAN does not move but it seems as if she might at any moment. MAN’s arms drop to his sides, having given up, and starts to walk in a counter-clockwise circle on the stage, hands in his pockets, looking upward. The curtains have fallen halfway and still descending. There is very little light left.
Pause. No one moves. MAN collapses, slumping onto the floor at front right.
WOMAN begins to silently cry, turns head away.
Pause. Curtains are three quarters down.
SHADOW falls.
Black.

Someone took my head apart. Someone took my head apart and showed it to me. Showed me where it hurt and where it bent. “All these nooks and crannies see” he says to me “They not natural. Not at all. You see why you’re her now, don’t ye?”
And something about the walls, about how high they are from us, or for us. Something about walling us away.
If I hadn’t soon gotten the impression that I was a lump of disembodied parts, then surely I would’ve thought that I was dreaming of you. In bed no less, in a ratty motel south of Chelsea.
The way things stand now are difficult. There are so few things to say with so many words to say them in. Sentences become difficult a notion as well as reading this apart.
I can’t. What do you expect me to do from here? Where do you want me to go? We’ve been in so many places together, seen so many chapels. But it had always been the stone firmament that you left in my mouth that brought us about.
The thing about writing this, is the letting go. I know how difficult this must be for you, considering who you are, or were, and what you have been through. Speaking isn’t much easier than writing, so I can imagine the difficulties of this, for so long.
And when I tell her that I’m dead, this little smile comes across her face, “What’s the meaning of this John?”
I am trembling right now. I can’t open myself up especially like this. I hate to look over my shoulder, leaving, again as then as now, forever walking away from me, from the Arc de Triomphe, oh so many years ago.
We had a time, hadn’t we? We made a show of things, with or without my head, my sense of things, with or without the act. We hadn’t much done it then, it was so new to us, so nasty and sweet and something like curry: something that you were bound to be stuck with, or have taste for, eventually, if all things.
After I’d been thoroughly convinced that I was holding my head in my hands, cracked open and fissured, someone comes along and tells me that it’s been my neck that’s been lopped off, “look here now boy, you’re bleeding all over the floor.”
It might have been America, it has the penchant for it, or South Africa, it’s hard to tell the difference. Only London and Paris stand out in my mind. Perhaps because they were so close that you could tell the difference, that you could tell it in two languages within three hours of each other.

I walked into the room and there she was
as I walked
into the room and I saw her lying naked and I thought that she looked to me
as if I was dead now staring at her hand over
the side of the bed open to the ceiling like she was waiting
for it to come down and slash her wrists in the flailing moment when I walked
into the room and expected her to be breathing there she was before looking
at her her hand turned upside to the ceiling, not breathing
I held my breath in case she wanted to move from one side to the other
eyes upturned, unfluttered I wanted her to blink at least before mine dried
out in watching her still.
Her robe was tangled
around her torso but it didn’t hide the scar I made on her
I made a scar on her before I had walked into the room
where she had been lying for such a time that the tears dried out from her eyes
now watching now waiting for the ceiling to come crashing in on her
wrists on her hands and knees begging me to do something about it
and I kept telling her that it wasn’t an issue I put that there and away
what came with it only to get taken away from me it took something out of us
maybe this is why I can walk in to a room and find her here like this
like I could always have imagined it
that I can walk into this room without breathing
and know that she was just by looking and not bend over double like a scar
across my stomach which she would do sometimes because the hurt was there
to make her make a double of herself in pain but now watching her fingers uncurled
stone half grasped with her wrist all out in the open her mouth slightly parted like she
was going to say something about how the ceiling was coming apart
how we were coming apart after she had been taken apart.
Sitting at the edge of the bed
and looking through the windows wondering where her life went
if her eyes
wouldn’t close the window closed I could still feel that it was cold
outside I can see it all clearly even though I’ve turned my back on her
and the ceiling
and the floor and everything that forced her in that direction with this weight behind me
how she would look at me if she had been able to breathe this much
further who knows how much earlier would I need to have been to see her look
one last time without telling it to me like this spilled out on the floor to spit it
out into the open without spilling over without cascading down this
slide smooth glass filled to the hilt with choking and bitter-sweet aftertaste stock stared
at staring I can see it now facing one damn cold window morning where she was
before I knew it my senses sprawling out along the floor that I walked in on to find her
scar facing me away from her eyes that I had brought the ceiling down on
wrists ripped wide open
to what she left me rattling against.

1. He put his hand on my breast telling me that I am going to like it.
Jeremy whispered he can tell by the feel of it in the palm of his hand and I did and didn’t want him to stay or leave, so caught up in himself, in my blouse, I wanted him to but I didn’t want to go any further, and I found it hard to say much of anything because his hands crawled up and down my face and chest and I wondered if he knew I had any legs, cottage cheese thighs that make me hate myself after a shower, with his hardness against them then, I wondered if he knew how hard my hands would get at grabbing each side of my thighs, the raw pink turning white, but wanting to keep him here, wanting him to remember the rest of my body, whispering to the rest of my body instead of my ears with his hands through my hair like daddy’s little girl, instead he rubbed and pushed himself against me, against the car door and it had been months since I saw him, it had been months since I saw him like this, at the airport, luggage strewn in the trunk when he grabbed me, spun me around before I opened the door, I didn’t think twice about it, I didn’t think twice, his hands all over me from the waist up or how perfect my tits were, gouging them as if he was looking for them, and I think I heard a plane landing or taking off, I couldn’t hear much of anything but I knew something happened because I suddenly felt his hand snake between the fabric and the skin and before I knew it we were against the headboard of the bed straight from the back seat of the car parked in the back lot of the motel only minutes away, minutes away from his coming, and he wouldn’t even look at me below the waist, his face buried between my shoulder and the beaten pillow while I stared at the joint between the ceiling and the wall remembering the girl who gave us the key to the room without blinking, without looking, and the glossy page she turned, the magazine she was holding, and I thought then all of things how boring and terrible she must think my thighs must be, since she wouldn’t even look at me and he couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

2. She insists it’s those skirts that I wear, while eating a taco.
Really, Jenna said between mouthfuls, how does she fit so much food in that little mouth of hers, I don’t know why you put yourself through that torture. I have the opposite problem, nothing seems to hug my hips, no one either. You know that man’s a predator, you know that don’t you? You don’t think he really loves you, do you? I’ve seem him look at me, she said, bringing her head across the table over the opened wax paper and fallen bits of lettuce, tomato, beef and sour cream, last year he even bumped into me at the Christmas party by the copy machine with his groin out to there and he and I both knew it was on purpose. She leaned back and crushed the rest of the corn shell between small impossibly white shiny teeth. Not that I would mind, mind you, but finders keepers and I have to admit, she added, I don’t like sloppy seconds, she looked me dead in the eye with eyes all lit up, nor do I cut throats, and my eyes never left her face, I didn’t even question it, going around it in circles after circle, from inside to out, eyes to nose to eyebrows to forehead to lips to hairline to ears to earring to pointed chin. Around and around her words spiraled off her tongue as she licked her finger one final time before we left, making our way through a huddle of swarming teenagers, boys pushing into girls and I wondered if they were rubbing their crotches against each other on purpose or if it was because the lines were simply too long and the cashiers too slow.

3. He’s a lovely man, my mother says, while ironing my father’s shirt.
God rest his soul if he could see the beautiful woman you’ve become. I lingered over the shelves of figurines against the furthest wall from her, the heat and the steam, the board and my dead father’s shirt. She stood there ironing although it’s been years and she still jumps at the slightest footfall from the porch, pitches up in the middle of the night she tells me and calls me, he almost came home tonight dear, she’d say, he almost did, he’ll come around, I’m sure he will when he realizes that we still love him, that he belongs here at home, and I rest my head against the uppermost shelf and turned to watch her forearms extend and contract, watched her hand smooth out the wrinkles of the cloth and press the iron across and when she lifted it up it gasps for air and the shirt smokes, I feel the pressing urge to smoke although I haven’t for some time, but I felt a little rebellious and I hated my mother and I wanted to break curfew tonight even though I no longer lived here, I stretched my neck and stared back at the empty smiling faces of the figurines that I used to play with because she wouldn’t buy me any toys, but I never touched the one of the little boy and girl kissing, I sat in front of it instead, stupid child that I was hoping that they would soon come up for air, and the iron gasped again and my mother set it on the edge with one hand while daintily picking up the shirt with her other and I noticed the brown spots blemishing across her arm suddenly and I found that I couldn’t breathe so I started to leave as she reminded me on my way out, don’t forget to call your father, you never call him he says.

4. I know why he won’t change the channel.
He said I didn’t know what I was talking about, that he didn’t know what I was talking but he wasn’t even talking to me, his eyes fixed on the screen while he drew me tighter, while he drew his hand around the other side of my waist and I told him I don’t want to watch this anymore and he frowned still staring, why not, you picked this movie out, and he started to unfasten my bra and the television set was moaning as two women in Bound start to moan and he fumbled around with my nipple in the same concentric circles one actress moved her hands over the other, I felt the weight of my thighs separated by his leg, the gasp of the iron, the crunching sound of stale corn shells on Jeremy’s breath, and I know what he did to me, what he was doing to me, and I felt raw and fleshy and I take up too much room in my bed, I heard myself telling him, you can stay but that movie has to go, nervous giggling and he stuck out his bottom lip looking at me for the first time ever so briefly before he snuggled his chin between my breasts and turned me around, away from the tv set, one eye still on it, and his tongue was suddenly in my mouth before something coarse and wet tumbled out of it, and I tried push him off because I felt so damn cold around the surface of my skin, and his leg was like an iron pressing up the hem of my skirt and I gasped as the women in the movie were gasping and I lost myself in that sound just beyond the bed springs, just around the corner where a car suddenly hit the curb just that side of the open gutter and the hubcap rattled across the pavement.

5. My father says Sundays are for children.
I looked at Jeremy as he stuttered and made a big show of it, or for me and for it, as he stared out the window during brunch, and fiddled with his utensils, paying careful attention to not let his eyes wander as our waitress bent over the table to serve our meal and I knew that it was over before it even began, before he even began, before we even came here, and he doesn’t really touch his food in the beginning, hands folded into each other, elbows bent sternly straight up the edge of the table, firm mouth pressed against the fold, holding his eyes closed, made little shakes with his head as if this was terribly new to him, that he had never expected it to be like this, to end like this, for us to have ended up like this, and I tilted my head as if I was listening to him but I only heard my mother and father laughing back when I was a child and I told him that Sunday’s were cats for some ridiculous reason I could not remember while Jeremy minced though his words actually began to chew them or were they home fires, and my father tickled me and my mother started to tickle us both and he said through his thick mustache as he kissed my mother’s head, no, you got it wrong, Sundays are for children as Jeremy got up hesitantly, abruptly, I think he might have asked me a question but he wasn’t really looking for me, I think he was looking for our waitress or the check and I know that there’s a difference between the two, but I watched instead a young couple walk in that weren’t as pretty or as perfect as they’re made out to be on the covers of magazines, and the boy didn’t know where to put his hands and she didn’t know when to look at him when he’s looking at her, and they were both so painfully awkward that it was gentle, he pulled her chair out for her, almost pulling it out from under her and I smiled so hard that my teeth show and Jeremy asked again, what’s so funny, what’s so damn funny?

“So, has it hurt at all?”

“No. not really. It’s hard to tell.” He played with wood that was splintering away from the bench. It was sunny and breezy, the grass thick and cut low.

She had pebbles in her hand that she tossed into the field across the path from them. They used to lie in the sun on the field, when the city was too hot. “You don’t miss it then? No pangs?”

He shook his head. “No.” He looked up and followed where her pebbles went. “Did you expect it to?”

“I guess. It doesn’t make much sense to, does it?”

“Well, neither one of us really had an idea about how it would go.”

She stood and threw a pebble as far as she could. She imagined it landing on a spot where they had at one time held hands, not so long ago, maybe a year or more.

He saw the pebble fall at the edge of the playground, a hundred feet or so from the bench. “You’re getting better.”

“Hmm. Some of the feeling is coming back to my arm. The doctors have been surprised.”

“It’s all guess work really, but the doctors won’t admit it.”

She kept her back towards him. They used to come here often, to jog around the reservoir further north in the park, when they lived together. It had all been rather rushed and fresh, barely could keep their hands off each other in the beginning. When she thought about it, they had barely known each other. “Do you remember how it was before at least?”

He squinted looking up into the sun, shook his head. “I see it, but it’s like a movie with no sound. All out of sequence. I can’t make any sense of it.”

She slowly sat back down and tossed another pebble. He watched where they fell. On the path, a number of bikers whizzed by. A novice on roller blades tumbled along. A family pointed out the trees from their horse carriage as it went by. Looking at her, he asked, “Have I changed much?”

“You look the same. Lost some weight actually.” She used to poke his belly and he’d swear that she was jealous of it. She had two pebbles left.

“Hmm.” He absentmindedly picked at the bench again.

She tossed a pebble. “Have you been eating?”

He nodded. “Occasionally. Two or three times a day. When the time comes.”

“Would you ever have it put back?”

He kept picking at the splinters of wood. A jogger sweated by. She fingered her last pebble.

He shook his head. “No. I might not clearly understand why I did it, but there must have been cause.” He looked across the park. “No way of second guessing myself now.”

She looked across the park also. He had called her a week before it was done. She thought he was joking, he hung up on her. She didn’t call back. “How do you see things now? When you look at everything around you?”

“I see the same as before.”

She sighed. “You know what I mean. How different is it?”

“The same. They’re there, just the way they are. Nothing more than that.”

She looked back down at her hands. When they’d spend time in the park, he’d make stories out of everything, out of the people that walked by, out of the children that played around them. He’d insist that everyone came to the park only to ogle at them, that they were the latest trend-setters, and that she had to start learning how to accept her newfound status. All because of him, of course. Staring into the palms of her hands, she whispered, “Just grass then..”

“No. There’re trees, children, and dogs. Is that strange to see things for what they are?”

“You know,” she turned but couldn’t face him, grasping the pebble in a fist, “I can’t help imagining that it’s all just black and white for you now. Don’t you feel that you’re missing out on something?”

“I don’t think I would have had them remove it if I didn’t know what I was doing, if it wasn’t what I wanted.” He watched children skip rope further up the path. He then said, looking away from her, “I was in the hospital for a long time.”

She shifted in her seat, looked first up the opposite direction of the path, then at her hands. Things had turned out badly, he broke a window when she was packing, but never laid a hand on her, barely spoke to her at all. He’d just roam about the apartment, and when she was in another room picking up a thing of hers, she’d hear something else smash against the wall or floor. When she walked back through the living room to leave, there were porcelain shards all over. “I know.”

“You never visited.” He turned to her, his face blank and curious.

“I didn’t exactly approve of what you were doing.” She tossed her last pebble.

“I still think, despite that, it would have been the right thing to do.”

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” She wouldn’t face him, staring into the field where the last pebble went and disappeared in the grass. She had said good bye then but he wouldn’t turn away from the window sill.

Another jogger trotted past them.

He said, “There was still some of it after the surgery. It hurt then. The nurses told me I was banging my head against the wall. Literally. I remember parts of that, but not why.”

“Having that little piece still inside you with nothing else probably drove you crazy.”

“I guess. The doctors gave me some drugs that wiped it out for good. I remember everything from that point on.” He leaned back and stretched his legs. Two women with baby strollers walked wearily by. “When will you go back to work?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know if I’ll be going back again actually. I know now the arm was just an excuse, you know how it was. Never really liked it there.”

He nodded. “That makes sense.”

She looked at him. He was watching the children in the field. In his hands was a splinter and he held his finger right up against the point. He turned to her and smiled. It looked awkward. He used to smile so often that she told him people must have thought he was an idiot, or at least high.

He said, “Good thing you had insurance. Just the x-rays were, what? 300 dollars, right?”

She didn’t say anything. He held the smile. He reminded her of a newscaster. Her eyes were squinting, a breeze blowing her hair back. She whispered, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you do it?”

His eyebrows furrowed. “I would be repeating myself.”

“Things weren’t that bad between us. We were still friends.” Even though they hardly ever spoke after she had moved out, she still rang him every couple of months or so for drinks, and during the holidays, they’d exchange presents.

“We were lovers first.”

She turned away. “Things didn’t work out. That’s all.”

“I’m merely pointing out a fact. I’m not blaming you for anything.”

The girls down the path had broken out laughing. Another biker whizzed by. A father walked by explaining something to his daughter as she skipped along.

“I still don’t understand. You were so full of life. Always laughing, at everything and everyone. You were such a maniac sometimes. When we went shopping you’d dance the hokey pokey in the middle of these long lines in the supermarket.” She sighed. “There were times that I just couldn’t stand it.”

He looked at her. “Well, there is nothing to put up with now.”

She looked at him. He was still smiling. She turned away, looking down at her hands. When things were good, he’d start laughing and crying at the same time. For no reason, he’d hold her face as if he was looking for something, the pressure of his hand just this close to uncomfortable then ask her, ‘How do you put up with me?’

A trio of joggers, one behind the other, single file, were warming down, walking past them. One stopped in front of them, bending at the waist, his hands on his knees, taking a breather. He stood straight after a couple of breaths, let out a long sigh, and then caught up with the rest.

“There were many people in that wing, where the procedure was done.” He stuck a hand in one of his pockets, pulling out a rumpled pack of cigarettes. “The doctor had done two others before me that day.” He looked at the pack. It was still almost full. “He said that the operation was wildly popular in a way that was worrying him, keeping him awake at night.” He tossed the pack into the trash can next to the bench. “Nightmares.”

She glanced at him. He also used to have nightmares, shaking, horribly wet from sweat, teeth bared. She’d hold him so tightly to keep him still, sobbing, saying his name over and over until he awoke sobbing in her arms. He wouldn’t go for help, he’d say that he didn’t believe in it.

A biker peddled by with her hands off the handles. An elderly man walked by, arms pumping, timed breaths. The crack of a bat somewhere behind them in a softball field.

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, looking over the field. “Why didn’t they get all of it? The first time, during the operation?”

“They weren’t going to from the beginning. They said that some parts are too close to regions that govern biological functions, like breathing. Once they had most of it, they’d inject us with a drug specially designed for those hard to get at corners.”

She looked at him. “Why not that from the beginning? Why surgery in the first place?”

“The patient has to be conscious when they administer it. And for some, it’s too big, the drug would work slower. They’d see it happening, actually feel it being taken apart.”

She closed her eyes and shook her head. He could have been prescribed something, she had told him. She thought now that he needn’t have done this. “Can you imagine?”

“No.” He tossed the splinter.

She looked at him. “You remember the pain? Why? Why do you remember the pain, you’re not supposed to, right?”

“I remember because it was a sensation. It’s not an emotion any more than getting a nail in your foot is.”

“Why this then?” She blurted. “Why are we here right now? To punish me? If you don’t feel anything for me why did you call?”

He sighed. “I called to end it.” He looked over the field. “I called to tell you not to ever call me again. I barely remember what little memories I have of you.” He picked at the bench. “I don’t want you to look at me as someone you had shared a part of your life with. I wouldn’t know why you looked at me in a particular way and that be something we might have shared before. I don’t want to put you into that position.” He turned to her.

Her eyes were wet. “How considerate…”

Another horse carriage lazily went by.

“This is… this is comfortable for me, do you understand? Not that you don’t mean anything. It’s not the same. You are significant because you are here right now. Not because we might have loved one another in the past.” He looked down the path. “It means nothing to me. It’s a series of half images that flicker with no weight. They don’t rest anywhere.” He glanced across the field. “I think that would be a problem. With you. I wanted to spare you. To show you what I am now and leave it at that.”
She bit her lip and stared across the field also. A couple wearing shorts and tank tops rollerbladed by.

“You bastard.” She had started to cry, shaking her head. Then she took a deep breath and stopped. “You want to know why you did it? You don’t remember?” She turned to him. “I know why. It’s all you talked about. You’d stay up all night, you wouldn’t come to bed, standing by the window staring at the street. I’d ask what’s wrong and you’d cry. I’d come to hold you and you were so stiff, like you wanted to push me off. You kept saying, ‘make it stop, make this all stop’…sometimes you’d crawl into corners..” She sniffled and half-laughed, shaking her head, “..shit. But I never understood, did I? You made sure. Just long nights with you by the window looking like a hurt puppy and me the dumb bitch that kept calling you to bed…”

A bird hopped at the edge of the grass.

“That’s why I left you. I couldn’t take it. Just like you. I couldn’t take your highs and lows and you, you insistent that I could.”

He looked her straight in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She turned away and wiped her face. “…you can’t apologize. I don’t think you know what it means.”

Cheers from the softball field. The novice on roller blades from earlier came around again, this time a little more confident. The bird at the edge of the grass was hopping onto the path, tilted its head, then flew off.

“After, when we’d talk, whenever I wondered just what the hell was going on with you since you’d never call, you’d say how you wished there was a way to remove your heart.” She reached for her bag underneath the bench and stood. She looked down at him. He was looking at her with clear eyes. “Well congratulations then. You did it.”

She turned away and walked off on the path, towards the girls jumping rope.

He watched her leave. After a few steps, her face was in her hands, then further down the path, she lifted her head and picked up her pace. Then she was out of sight, disappearing down a bend. He sat there staring for a few moments, then returned his attention to the bench. Slowly, he picked off another splinter.

without
having to say,
“this is how”
,you said
splinters
against
the lid of my eye
,so I can say,
“this is how
dreams die.”
when you said,
“never”
,I felt remorse
for the eye
I had
given you
to see
the world
when I had kept the other
for me to see
you with.
I twist
my neck
past the bone
to watch you
leave
as my mouth swallows
your last kiss
as, “the final kiss.”
my cigarette burns
the empty socket
of where you had taken
my eye
so as to not see
you again.
even if you stood
still
how absurd for you
,in my dreams,
to be crying.

you leave
and I rake over each pore
you had (touched).
so much of you(r face)
in me
and yet your body is only a thing
that enabled you(r lips)
to lie.
I miss the feel
of you(r sweat) against my throat
but my lips remind me
the taste of all that you (n)ever were.
to dig my fingers
into the hollow of you(r jaw)
to kiss you
and rip your teeth out
,to have your smile with me always,
would hurt me more
to have
what only you had.
I want to tear
with my teeth
your breath (away)
that is still
in my eyes.
this is the pain
,the tension,
of you no longer
being “you..”
if I could take apart
every thing of you
separate them
one by one
to regard each piece
,hand to mouth,
it would be easier
to sleep
without you(r laughter).