i am in some new space, so raw and ill defined
boundless, i can see the horizon up close and yet very far
i’ve been so far from home and only getting further
what strange landscape is this, all gravel and rocks and wind
dead trees and cracked pavement, twisted road
all for comfort, all this i find comfort
bleached sky, no trace of sun
just endless white, the ghost of a dying moon just to the left
have i always been here all along, is this where the roar comes from?
have i finally come home, to this place, to this barren place?
jagged edges and plains wide and spectacular, impossible on the eyes
hard surfaces and forever, dust and life eternal
ageless in the face of pain, of sorrow, of happiness, and rage
as if it all began and ended in this scorpion’s tail
perched before my lips, akin, kin, little brother, little sister
is this where i’ve always belonged? have you missed me?
Category Archives: words
what new thing i’ve become
i look down the cuts in his arm,
not “on”, but “in”
what new thing have i become?
he wonders idly, what if,
what if now, the morning after, i pry each wound re-open,
what if i piss on my arm, what if i smear my shit over the wounds
spiders or leeches or metal shavings
what if what if what if-
what of it?
what new sense is this, what new boundary drawn around me?
i look in the cuts of my arm
not “at”, but “in”
like some new orifice, some new mouth
some new voice speaking to me
revealed suddenly as if some virgin moment
grounding me once again
same as i never was
i’m fucking for real
two years ago, right around this time actually, i was arrested for drinking and driving. while my case was going through the courts, to be able to still drive back and forth to work, i had to sign up for a drinking and driving course, which i really was not looking forward to.
it was also during that time that we lost our second baby, before she was even born, at five months.
anyway, the course wasn’t all that bad, the instructor was nice enough, especially considering everything else that was going on. but one day, she made some point, the difference between a social drinker, a problem drinker and a flat out alcoholic.
“so waitaminute,” i interrupted, “because we’re all here, we’re Problem Drinkers?”
and she was beaming, nodding her head, as if some revelation should have dawned upon us.
what a crock of shit.
if i made myself vomit once, does that make me bulimic?
if i thought about suicide and hit the gas, does that make me suicidal?
if i beat someone senseless with my fists, does that make me a murderer?
if i cut myself, does that make me a masochist?
what utter shit. we’re so quick to put people in boxes, to categorize and label and fucking sanitize, keep in a corner, make safe, make fucking impotent and useless. so fucking quick to judge and dismiss, like we’ve got a full case load and no time at all to pay attention to the details.
it’s only the fucking details that matter, that makes us real to one another. without details we’re cardboard cut-outs, the kind you find at the 7-11, and just as trivial and disposable. we’re a fucking disposable society, we can’t wait to throw everything and anything away. god forbid the clutter, god fucking forbid we make a mess of anything. what a joke, what a waste.
no body fucking listens for the details anymore.
…
the crush of all-at-once
the all-at-once, breathing everywhere, where have i been, the all-at-once being, cannot make sense of it, breathing, remember to breathe, did you breathe before this, before taking this on, did you forget to breathe, where have you been breathing, stop breathing, stop breathing like this, pushing it down, push it down, the hand on the chest, holding it there, pushing, holding it there, hold it there, breathing, have you breathed today, hold that one breath, everywhere, the all-at-once, one last breath, one last hand pushing, push it down without breathing, crush it down, crush this last breath, without stopping, turning away, stop turning away, stop breathing, one last time, let it go, let it go all-at-once, never let it be all-at-once, just be all-at-once, at all sides, the swirl everywhere, where can i go, further than this, where further this breathing, how to breathe further than this, without stopping, how do i go on without stopping all-at-once?
i have left myself
i have left myself utterly speechless at a time when i cannot be, when i need to account for myself, for who i used to be and what i’ve become.
there is little talk of what lies ahead, it stretches endlessly, stark and barren, everything i imagined it be, without rest, without end, without hope.
i have left myself on the side of the road, arrogant and bruised and it is still not enough, i have not been beaten enough, i’ve yet to be beaten enough.
all i can do is pick at the pavement, fit my fingernails between the cracks and wonder how much effort would it take to bury myself under there, how much pressure can this amount of cement and tar and traffic exert on this corpse of mine.
and would it be enough, it was never enough, it can never be enough, will never be enough, how to measure it?
enough.
the only thing left to do
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.
what you’re good at
“the only real thing you are good at,” he says, sitting and swaying the chair back and forth on the rear two legs, ashtray overflowing, the table pock-marked and scarred.
“I mean the only real thing you have talent for,” he stops dead and straight, “is breaking things. that’s it. nothing else.”
cuts himself for bugs
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.
cold stone embers
“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