sometimes the only thing left to do is put your head through a fucking window and let your weight do the work for you, let whatever fucking warmth is left within you run out, feel that fucking release, that lightheaded sensation of a severe dip in altitude, let all that fucking guilt and shame and anxiety wash out from under your chin, find a fucking way to just end it all to be done with it, just fucking be done with it, done with what’s fucking haunting you and all the damage you’ve done.

he cuts himself open for all to see, to hand out gifts to his children. he parts the skin gently, lest it tears and pushes away the fat.
his right lung is made up of cocoons as if grapes on a vine and he plucks them one by one until he finds it difficult to breathe. something squirms in each one and as one child holds it up to the setting sun she sees that each brims with scorpions.
his massages out his spleen gingerly, slippery to the touch. out from it comes cockroaches of various shapes and sizes, from translucent, where the children could see the process of their organs, to thick and dark brown, almost beetle like.
and as he does this the centipedes and millipedes that he has for intestines snake out of the wound and slither and slide, up and down the length of his torso and chest. the children poke and they in turn come off his body and arch backwards to be petted.
until he is spent. he collects his belongings and pulls from his bag, needle and thread. stitches himself up to their dismay, as if all of this had been for show. once he bites the excess from the knot, he is gone.

“In too deep and lost in time,
Why’d you have to go and let it die?” -Foo Fighters, “Let it Die”
we get on our knees huddle close to glowing stones
maybe if we cup our hands, maybe if we cup them together, we can keep this fire going
blow something from our breaths into life, resurrect these dying embers
but all i want to do is blow it all out, all i want to do is bring in the cold
i want to match the void i feel inside, i want to swallow these ashes and burn myself out
i want to feel where my heart used to be, i want to remember what i once was
i no longer want the feeling that something has left
or that i’ve been left bleeding
or that i am about to leave
just the steady burn of this tired muscle in my chest
peeling away into winter

even when they fought there was something spectacular about it, supercharged and compelling. to see them go at it, back and forth, one pulling then pushing the other away. he insistent and patient but then calculating and cruel. she outstandingly beautiful in her viciousness. role reversal, sexy rage. as much as they cursed each other, neither would leave the other, or themselves, for dead. locked in an embrace fueled by passion, circumstance and a relentless need that neither one could define. perhaps it was the lack of definition that drove each maddeningly towards one another, without care for themselves, with a recklessness that made them feel all the more real.

“ultimately,” he said, holding the cigarette between his first two fingers and gesturing, “it’s a question of will. not truth.”
he flicked the ashes and drew another drag. “you can’t get it. but you can stick it out, you can choose to face whatever it is, and live with what comes out of it.”
“besides,” he leans back, “this is something you’ve known all along. it’s, what do you call it? your mantra, your way of life.”

the sadness of waiting for him to return to comeback to be here with her here in the dark to keep the dark at bay despite everything despite the years despite his wife and she waits and waits until she cannot wait anymore and then decides to wait some more until it was much too late
and he waits for every opportunity every spare moment to be with her he aches for her he yearns for her but unwilling to break open his life afraid afraid that the spell would be broken if he was ever to give himself over what would he do then when she left what would he do alone in the dark and when he does she’s already gone the pride keeps him from saying something more anything about it anymore
until he sees her again years later and the itching is there again but neither one says anything about it and he wishes things were different and she wonders if ever she was truly done with him and he sees her eyes and cannot stop staring and with him staring she cannot help but wonder if only she waited a bit longer
and they barely touch in the bookstore as if afraid although he thinks of the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips and she thinks of how he bit her neck and moved his hand between her thighs and it was never just about sex with them some other thing that waited for them on the other side and he wishes he was there again in her apartment from years ago in the dark where they were caught between staying and leaving and waiting anything other than where he was now
despite this she smiles and kisses him briefly on the cheek and walks out without looking back like she always did and it was that one lack of a gesture that kept him from giving himself over and she crosses the avenue she returns to her life without telling him she had eventually married without telling him she still thought of him from time to time but sometimes it was bitter and sometimes sweet without telling him she had grown to think of him fondly but it was difficult at times because of the damage the waiting had done
despite this he smiles and kisses her cheek briefly and pauses because something was different he could no longer imagine the feel of her lips which struck him as odd to suddenly forget because even in his dreams he could still taste them and here he was letting go again watching her leave all pleasantries aside not having told her that he was alone so utterly alone in the dark and he was still waiting for her if only in his dreams to tell him she would have waited a little longer if only he had asked her to.

just stop it i cant take it anymore all these lies all these opinions all these facts and figures of places and war and betrayals of men cheating on their women and women fucking random men and children beaten like animals and animals chewing the bones of bleeding men and storms wiping out cities and i want to be far away from you all i want to be by myself in some corner of the world undiscovered where no one can speak and the sun forever sets and the tide is always low and someone is always just on their way to somewhere else always leaving and not wasting my time just get out of my head these words that become images too vivid too sharp they cut themselves out from inside my eyes and sometimes i wouldn’t even know where to begin again where to stand so i am frozen absolutely still with it on battered jetty rocks made slick that i would skin myself open to bleed you all out each and every one each and every memory each and every thought until i was dry until the world greys out until the shore blossoms into view until the roar finally leaves me and i am left finally until i am left alone until i am left in silence and all of you are gone.