“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
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.
let’s play a tune
and every time he plays with her body it’s a new kind of tune, like something climbing up out of the depths, ancient and old but utterly new and wonderful. he feels her skin across his own like some harmony that reverberates back and forth through time and shakes the cobwebs off his eyes. and when he reveals her pussy the scent of her fills him up, hardens him and urges him, demands of him to inspect this fruit even closer, to ripen it, to open it, to taste it, to quell his hunger and sate her own. and when she takes his prick and massages it he feels an excitement that is at once illicit and natural, as if they were always meant to be like this, hand and mouth on cock, hand and mouth on cunt, eternally. and the chords strike even harder, sharper when she eases his dick inside her, where the sound gets lost in her throat but just escapes and the music plays havoc with him as he becomes lost to their rhythm. until he cums or she cums or they cum, it doesn’t matter, something gets lost in the translation, some thing gets translated between them, some satisfaction that is primal and comforting, staying within her, her staying with him, their bodies still close, breathing in one another. and it isn’t as if he can ever have enough of her, the ghost echoes of desire shoot through him in the night, in his sleep when he believed he already had his fill, finds himself wanting again, wanting to play again a tune that starts from within him and all too soon ends within her.
didn’t need you to tell me
after an hour of sleep waking with the voice in my head-
didn’t need you to tell me that i was ugly as well, but i’m glad you did like everyone else.
i dreamt nostalgia
i had dreamt the nostalgia of someone else’s life. and in it they were very strong on the inside but the scars on the outside were still healing and she would never yield as he remembered.
and this was why he came back and again because she would not stop, because she could not stop imagining him or giving him some reason for a life that was not his nor mine but i could remember her for it.
the way he wanted to bring things all to an end desperately she would dig her nails into his neck and i could laugh because the love was so big and the lies too small to notice the bleeding on each side of this memory.
until the lies became like love and she believing one for the other or was that the other way around?
i would like to have some version of it that was not sinister but there was something to be said for that and i stuttered myself out of place suddenly when she finally relented and he quietly remembers only this life as his own.
stop polluting my head
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.
all liquor conversations
all conversations with the liquor are good ones.
inner dialogs run amok settle down for peace treaties with the liquor.
the liquor lays out lateral logic and associative desire and sets things straight.
all demons are negotiated with, hidden children are brought to light and glorified, unreasonable memories are let loose and forgotten, no one is left out.
the liquor brokers and sorts through real and imagined pain and allots each moment its proper place.
a troubled soul comes to the liquor and finds a way out, be it through violence, tears or laughter, it finds release and the liquor is proud of it.
how about this
how about this? he said and he cut open the inside of his forearm and teased out the tendons with the edge of the knife. when he was done with that, he placed the knife down and pulled the skin open a little more, the edges tearing a bit, there’s so much blood, and he works his fingers inbetween the muscles that drape over the bones. it’s warm and clammy and familiar. of course when he flinches the muscles twitch, and he coughs a bit to keep from vomiting. when he can finally see the space just between the ulna and the radius, he takes the cigarette from his mouth and puts it out in there, inside his arm, the cigarette gasping, him wincing, him laughing, him weeping, because it doesn’t even come close to what’s already inside his head.
her weapon
and in my dream she comes to me, naked and pristine, one side of her ribs cracked open, a shattered window, a gaping hole where her heart would have been and she smiles brilliantly like happiness and i break into a million pieces because i am holding her heart in my own hand and the blood is thick and slick in my fingers and i have to grip it even harder lest it escape, restless, hot and wild, this magnificent muscle, and there she was bleeding out of her heart and out of the wound and i walk up to her and with my other hand, to try to to stem the flow and suddenly she touches my chin and brings my mouth to hers, her kiss, tongue and teeth and lip, and i falter, i ask,
“am i your weapon?”
and i fall to my knees with my head against the concrete and i slam against it but it isn’t hard enough, i cannot beat my skull in fast enough to match the beat of her heart, just this pathetic wet sound of skin having been broken but the bone too stubborn to break and she kneels beside me and caresses my hair and does not ask me to yield, i turn to her and shove her heart back into the wound, scraping it, damaging it yet again but i can not hold it anymore, i skin my knuckles with the effort, bite off the sides of my tongue, but shards of ribs trap my hand, slicing around my wrist as i twist and tug and find myself relieved to see i am spilling open into her, i can see the marrow, i see myself laughing and she touches my cheek and i am not afraid, i am so utterly lost and hopeless, and she whispers,
“no. i am yours.”
soft soft
soft soft like lying, lying beside the ocean, the whisper of a sea too distant to feel the current and yet drowning, drowned, i can’t swim out of it, i can’t find where the sky should be, there is only night and her, the dream of her waking up, the sun rising, there is supposed to be some sort of bottom or else how do i find my way upwards, how to find air, when there is no undertow, just a pulling at all sides, the whip tails of something passing, eyes open but blurred for lack of place, i cannot see her, only feel the weight she carries, as if she had been the anchor to my dilemma and she cut me into pieces, cut me loose, adrift, drifting and swept up just before breathing, and cut and spun, again and again, again and again.