and the roar comes back to me,
soft and gentle and strong, and
suddenly
for the first time
i realize what it is: it is mourning,
it is loss & it goes on
without stopping
Category Archives: internals
thoughts, musings, life, etc
mutter-stutter-chatter
first it’s the chill from his skin inward until it hits his bones, then shoots outward. he doesn’t understand it, how sudden, this wave of nausea, this harsh way it wipes him out. he thinks “i’ve been poisoned.”
poisoned and restless, reckless and rotten, “it must’ve been something i ate.” he gathers the rinds of figs, inspects them, looking for mold. flash of cold warps him, his stomach turns, catches suddenly bile in his throat.
“i must’ve caught something,” tremble in his belly, the stench of cigarettes in his hair. he wants to say, “i think i going to be sick,” but he barely makes it staining the floor with vomit.
up and down staircases for hours, doesn’t know whether to turn right or left so he keeps turning, stumbling about, reaches out for anything to steady himself. someone touches his shoulder, says, “let me take your temperature.”
his mouth is dry, he is so cold, he mutters to himself, mutters himself into the shower, mutters to himself until the water hits his skin, he swears it sizzles, leaning against the very same wall where the knobs are, turning it and turning it.
he stutters himself under blankets, he chatters to ghosts in the room with him, his child puts a wet towel on his forehead. the dead one, the one never born. “would you have given up on me if it was the other way around?”
rabid
the lather of it rides
planks stolen from kennels
we raided while hungry
for that one piece
of gamy meat with tendons
for threads you stitched
across my neck a tattoo
of sinews parted
& vocal chords bared
the harsh kiss of leaving this life, any life
there are times when i feel clustered, an enormous pressure to put the pieces back together, this enormous need to put things back as they were, but i don’t recognize the pieces, i don’t recognize my hands. what were, what when, what now. i look at all of you and i am shattered, a million sharp edges without remorse, weeping for stones, for something to rest my head against. and i cannot find a way back in and i am terrified of finding a way out, the streets beckon me, the harsh kiss of leaving this life, any life behind me. i want to forget this, i want to forget my name, i want to forget the history that travels in this blood. i want to forget i am my father’s son, i want to forget the taste for cruelty the years have given me. how perfect you left this life, you cold cold bastard, without ever opening your eyes again, without ever fucking even acknowledging what you’ve rendered in me. i will cut my face off for you to let me be. i will shave my scalp, crack my skull, bleed my wrists open to get your blood out of me. do you understand? i am twisted up into mourning for you and for who i could have been but i need to be free of your legacy to be anything normal. i need to you to leave my thoughts, i need you to no longer be the shadow behind every gesture i make. i need to look at my children without pain, without the fear that i too will do to them what you had done to me. i scratch and scratch my wounds and i know it’s not because the air is dry. you’re still there, you’re still here and only i wish to remain.
hunger & grieve
it is good to hunger and grieve, to feel the need of loss, to have an appetite, simply to want and never be quite satisfied. it is good to feel the rumble in your stomach, the undefinable ache that you cannot pinpoint, the slight tremble at your fingertips that you are weak with longing. it is a curse to grow fat, it is a curse to mourn for nothing anymore, it is a curse to no longer desire.
strained wet gravel
the little one cries in the middle of the night, a hoarse sound over strained wet gravel. she panics and says she cannot breathe, short interrupted heaves. i snap her up and hold her tight in my arms, press her body into my chest and whisper into her ear, it’s ok, it’s ok, breathe like this, and i breathe, calm down, breathe like this, and she breathes. she settles down, long haggard breaths smooth out. she whispers, i’m ok now, and i breathe hoping the breath she catches is my own.
skin cartography
i wish i understood this need in me, i wish i could bear it and leave it alone, set it into its box and shuffle it away amongst other lost regrets. let it gather dust, let it bleed itself out. i wish time could indeed heal all wounds when i know precisely differently: time leaves mountain ranges of scars, an etched cartography of loss across fragile skin.
meat blanket
fistfuls of sleep hammer me into the sheets, i turn into the chill of morning, no blanket can warm me, no body to hold this tired skin, my face feels swollen, i am obese and it is all beyond measure, there are no increments designed for this, this sense of helplessness, of resignation, my son cries and i hold him close to me, curl around him, put this slab of meat i call a body to some good use.
i am
i am the well without water. i am the tethered line holding you aloft by a single thread. i am the pins and needles before a heart attack. i am the stars in your eyes before you stroke out. i am the hand that wipes your brow as you take your last breath. i am the man that searches your corpse to find out who you were. i am the first love that breaks your heart. i am the clever lie told straight to your face. i am the worm in the rain. i am the cigarette that burns your lungs. i am what i am and one day you’ll wake up and realize you don’t need this shit anymore.
cumbersome smoke writing
this is of course a cumbersome habit i’ve gotten into: writing while i smoke outside. but i love it so, i love sitting outside and thinking the world as i imagine it, writing down spur of the moment thoughts and lines that have haunted me. i wonder sometimes if everything i’ve written has already been written somewhere and it leaks out, butchered by these clumsy hands. i know less and less words, moments of time disappear into sewers of memory, lost in the sludge. the cigarette drops ashes like leaves and the slow steady rain brings me a comfort i yearn for everyday.