amanda comes to me in the dark, she’s been dead for a little over 48 hours, but still she comes to me. i see her ravaged, i see her broken, her lip split, a foot missing a shoe, hobbling. she comes to me with one arm limp down her side, the other reaching out for me. and as i breathe heavy into the dark, i can see her trying to say my name, trying to say something, some stark refusal that she is dead. i shiver and sweat and wait for her. i wait for her to reach our bed and take my life for hers.
Category Archives: words
it’s not happening now
a dilemma. not happening
now
it’s not
happening over again
but still happening
all over now, a radiation of the senses
a phantom limb all over
scarred mess of tissue
if only i could cleave it, separate it from the wound
of it happening
asking me not to dwell on it is asking
to tie my hands and swallow it
whole and unblemished
over not happening now
but it happened, still happening
and i can’t get over who i’ve become
better, stronger, wiser
still healing, a happening now
not happening over again, sure
the worst of it
being i’m glad it happened, it woke us
up out of something tired and wasted
but had i known, always
had i known, i never would have
taken her, given her this pain
to forgive
sudden and aware
to find rest, raining, pouring, wind whip. i shiver through my anger, little patience, even less. maniacal need surpassed, a grinding peace, she’s always deserved much more, much better. awake in twilight, the first to face the dawn, i was meant to be like this. sudden and aware, before anyone else.
brother twist
two brothers sit by the shore, the curb, the bar. they talk in half sentences, lengthy monologues, subtle gestures. he tells the other of his wife, his girlfriend, a lost love. the other talks about nothing, the weather, the latest score. their jobs are meaningful, pointless they are still looking for work. one mentions his house, his landlord, moving. one drinks and drinks, doesn’t touch his glass, fingers the peanuts constantly. they each have forgotten to dream, plot their escape, seek comfort. when they leave one says to other, we need to do this again, say hello to the family, fuck off.
bent over double
ravaged and hung sideways: I feel the spleen. drenched in over coats over stepping bounds like mad fathers who persist to abduct their children while screaming epithets. we drink and stumble and laugh a laughter from deep in our bellies because the day has its shortcomings and we could not abandon it. he says to me, the violence never ends, only our bodies ability to withstand it.
spring time
from barren limbs nubile buds streching into something beautiful. she inists on watering the weeds and with careful chubby feet tips the spout sideways. my love reminds me to be good to her. time heals nothing; all it does is encourage forgetting. and my son witless and joyful, gnaws on anything he can get his infant hands on.
dream love
in the dark guttural sounds choking spit into mouths pried wide open. she lays across me like a snake slithering across preying hands that tug and pull and grip into twilight. you dream of petals. you dream of sighs and beckoning. spent i lay flat on my back and admire her against a blue haze that wipes the room out completely. she asks, did you dream, did we dream this? i replied reaching her to keep me still, you are the dream.
weehawken jig
and we bear down waiting for it, crush of concrete against the forehead. endlessly i drove through the city at sunset, jammed and stalled in canyons and mobs. i loved it, i miss it, coursing through its veins, an infection shot through one arm and slung across its neck. we dreamed of lavish greenery and snow banks toppled over by children. the cold was bitter and whet our appetites, a slick gnawing of knuckles. and at daybreak, careening back home, i was in love with it all, i loved it like madness.
told before breaking
you break
without breaking, without being
broken, you dream
of breaking fists through glass
shards until they become grains of sand
stuck beneath your fingernails, broken
of this breaking, lips for promises
like a lover’s tale told
to you before weeping
fragmented
you think of this, of scratching the walls, peeling the paint, chewing on dust. it leaves your mouth. more of it, gnawed limbs of trees, a petal caught between the teeth, bark stuck in the throat. slow it down, falling, slumber of the exhausted. had you heard of this before? twilight, morning, harsh sun. and end to all things, an end to despair, an end to dreaming.