an end then, she said, an end to sadness, an end to hope. i had been dreaming, she sat against the headboard, arms wrapped around knees pulled up underneath her chin. there were tears in her eyes, thin rivers of blotched mascara down her cheeks, i was turning. her voice was hoarse as if she was shouting, a cigarette dangled from loose fingers, traces of ashes peppered the sheets. no longer dreaming i stared at the ceiling, measured it’s length and width, judging the weight of it. and i found myself lacking, my body bruised from the night before, perhaps we had been fighting, my knuckles swollen from punching walls. she inhaled the cigarette deeply, furious glow and a slight tremble in her hand. i watched and felt the hot furnace of it fill my lungs, felt it shorten my breath as she exhaled. catching myself i whispered, i never thought i would die this way, but she was gone.

the voice, any voice. there, somewhere in the throat. i had written it. it came out in spools, it came out in coughing. i had dreamt it in a sunlit room. the curtains were sheer, i could see the morning. diffuse and bright. she was there. she was leaving. she had turned away from the curtain, it left her fingers and the voice left me. i still had something to say. i coughed instead, writing it down. she couldn’t understand, she left but brought back a glass of water. it smashed in my hand. the pieces caught the sun, made a prism of the quilt. there at her thigh, a flank of muscle tense, neither coming nor going. the door was still open, i had stopped breathing, i wanted nothing to chance. i was committed and the afternoon was too early, a mugginess, a certain thick quality. her voice, any voice. spare change on the dresser, a notebook, a pen. a book of matches torn to the last.

and when i tell him my name, he tells me he’s forgotten it. and when i tell him how long it’s been, he tells me it’s was just like yesterday. and when he asks about mom, i remind him that she’s dead. then he looks at me like i’ve killed her and i wipe the dribble off his chin. i pick up the spoon and he tells me he’s not hungry anymore, he won’t eat until she comes to see him. i tell him that she’s gone. he asks me who i am as i feed him, and it begins all over again.

she sexes me up on her knees as the sun breaks open clouds that bloat the horizon into red. somewhere in the distance i hear the sound of tears welling up into eyes inches from a floor newly built with hands cracked and still bleeding. i make promises of parched lips and dry tongues while she laughs and the entire world takes the sharp breath of animals in their sleep. for years i had spent denying the absence of where i once was but just before nightfall she asks, when are we going home?
if only the rain would come and wash the gristle of it away.

that’s not what i meant at all. how about this

on her knees again and she’s saying no again but he says, yes, and she whispers, not again, and he says yes over and over until her head bounces off the floor again and her feet go out from under her and the room becomes walls without windows or doors, but slowly back on her knees again, bruises welling up with her tears and he says, just this once, again, one last time again, and her mouth is sticky with his spit and he pulls her up into his arms but her teeth are loose and her lips are bleeding again, but he holds her tightly saying, never, never again, and instead she kisses him and says nothing more.

that’s not right either, how about

on her knees again, putting him in her mouth again and he swears not again, but she sexes him up wanting him again and he meets her on the floor and they’re at it again breathing like sharp animals on the prowl again and it all comes down to be being bruised again, his mouth bloody with her again, the sun fighting the night through undrawn curtains in a room without doors again, and she says, yes again, over and over, and he says never again, never will i leave you again, and their bodies find the bed without clothes again, with her leg draped around his and his hand pulling her close by the hair again and they both weep for another moment to never end like this again.

sometimes the drift comes in at all angles and children make snow angels in driveways. your voice wakes me up into afternoons of empty houses and burglars on the prowl. i slip on ice and skate into stained glass not yet muddied by contempt. steps into staircases onto floors of new wood already beaten by a relentless gravity. i burrow myself underneath a field of raked leaves waiting for a match. or, at the very least, the absolute quality of winter.

not one word today. today will be the day. nothing to hang from your lips. not another. it all ends today, the saying and the said, the haunting and the promise. not one word. don’t you say not one word to me young man. don’t you say another word or i’ll tell your father. your mother. your husband. your sister. all your friends. nothing to scrape against the wall. today if not any other. i’ll not have one word of it. pull me up with coat hangers through my cheek. we’ll not talk about this, we won’t split open trees and dig our teeth into the pulp. we won’t dig our hands into the dirt and finger pebbles between the sediment.
she laughed and ran calloused fingers through my hair, you took the words right out of my mouth.

roused from his seat, oily vines entangle him fuss with his hair,
they snake under his shirt, slide up his leg, thorns catching the pores,
a thin one curls around his ear, fills the canal,
where have you been?
several wrap around his tongue, another plunges down his throat,
piercing through his navel, one splits open the abdominal wall,
one struggles up the urethra of his penis, another toys with his anus,
where have you been?
one stretches out his scrotum, another twists through his colon,
more go through his mouth, split into different directions in his chest,
struggling to breathe, they dance in his lungs,
where have you been?
one shoots out, enters his heart, others weave through his ribs,
they grow and inch through his arteries, narrow down into his veins,
around his spine, wrapping the femur, tight along the shins,
where have you been?
under his shoulders, down the arm right to the fingertips,
up through the muscles of his neck, at the base of his skull,
he feels them under his scalp, he feels his eyes bulge,
where have you been?
he coughs, chokes, pisses on all fours,
i’m here, i am here.

the young man turns and says, “all beautiful things rot. as does all ugliness. everything in the end eventually just dies.”
the grizzled man regards him for a moment, then slowly nods his head. “now you’re getting it boy.”