she asks, “did you think it or did you dream it up?”
as if the dreaming and the thinking were two points separated, serrated, cut and distant as the difference between a burst of laughter and an accident between a cracked tooth in the mouth and the floor where the tiles meet exactly beneath our feet without peeling upward into lemon rinds stuck in my knuckles against the mesh of chicken wire to the point of uprooting the two by fours and nothing more, nothing more, nothing more
but he asks, “was the leaving and the going the same?”
sitting outside with the little one
sitting outside, writing, the little one comes out.
“what you doing daddy?”
pitched cigarette smoldering on the grass
“nothing baby, just getting some fresh air”
she scrunches up her face, “but there’s nothing outside”
i smile, “sure there is. there’s the wind, look at the leaves, the trees.”
she settles up next to me on the bench, takes my arm around her
“yeah,” she says.
to walk on barbed wire
to walk on barbed wire, to try to move ahead, getting stuck and tugging, pieces left behind, flecks of skin, blood on metal, the forget-me-not pieces, the pieces you balance yourself to retrieve, once again getting caught up, pierced and loathing the capture, relishing it, moving on, moving through, despite it, because of it, “the difference between moving and moving away”, never weeping, only jarring loose, shaking the limb, with some measure of grace, with some measure of compassion, even in pain, to go on, pluck meat from the skewer, and move.
contain
i said, “please stop this. stop doing this”
as if i could ever contain
you, fix you, set you
straight, when you have every right
for rage
you did not tell me
blitz, you did not tell us, did not tell me
why didn’t you tell me, what sort of monster i was
and would become?
did you know? you knew didn’t you?
you saw it and did not tell
was it because there would be no stopping it
or that it would be my choice?
to face myself as i am
shattered and smashed and ugly
love without stopping, cruelty without stopping
a damage machine, nails for tears and blades for lips
hulking beast beyond all reckoning
resting for thirst, begging for rust
and i pu(ni)sh myself
i push
myself, that extra inch and i feel
wounds open again and i
want them
to open, i want them to stay
open
heal only to tear
again, the question is,
do you really want to heal? that much
harder, i twist
and turn and
stretch and twist
again
and it shoots right through me,
angry, happy, electrified ants
here is your arm dear, look how pretty it is, here
is your arm
i do not want to heal right
away, i do not want to heal
the right way
a million little tears, like streaks
of blood down my arm
first few drops
before
rain
i am in some new space
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?
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.
…
