Friday, October 31, 2008

if there were a saint for shitty timing, i'd pray to her

when you said it at first
i thought you were lying,
i mean
what a way to admit,
years after the fact
you'd wanted most
what you would not do -
ask me to be more yours,
than simple fucking

and i, unknowing
the frail hold you had on fraying nerves,
a snake lying in wait
for the next sudden movement,
which i got all wrong,
so i got bit

which is fair,
i suppose -
after all
i knew i was handling something
skittish,
and wild

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

spilling

i dyed today -
myself, i mean
spilling ink all over my knuckles,
which now as if i've engaged
in gloveless boxing
and it won't wash off,
but settles into the lines
of my wrist so i can
see the tiny creases
we normally don't notice
all over our skin

i look like a law
office suicide
pants&sweater set
off-set by my
blood-like spatter pattern
that clashes with the decor,
and my shirt
should've used black,
i suppose
better to look
a fool with an inkpot
than someone who might
bleed on your files

Monday, October 27, 2008

liquid parts of life

the shock and suddenness of
unexpected bleeding
as your lower lip blossoms and
all you can taste is iron, dull
and lifeless
or the smell of it, as you crouch
behind your desk and hope
a handkerchief is enough
blood caking inside your nose
or the vividly visceral watching
a razor part the skin and peel,
in layers, the truth from
whyever you are doing it, even
while knowing how
maladaptive and unnecessary
and useless the action is
and knowing you do it because,
not in spite of these things -
always a conscious choice,
for you - the need
to show something,
and knowing
exactly how
to do so

Sunday, October 26, 2008

if we still love

eventually,
i answered
my own questions,
as i often,
accidentally do:

yes, no; maybe
[indifferent, i believe you are
but i am livid with it]

yes, the relationship remained
and no, it devolved
into tears, fears, and
other excrement
and maybe in a few years
this won't seem so urgent, or desolate
indifference may one day remain
for more than mere moments

in the meantime i bide time
dulling myself whichever way works well enough
and i hope
that in enough time
the answer will be yes
and i won't be using
your name
in the same sentence as
the phrase,
"stupid fucking man"

Saturday, October 25, 2008

fall

instead of hiding inside
the sickness that lives in my head,
i bide my time
biting my lips.
they eventually crack
and bleed
and it's painful when i smile, so
i rarely do
especially when thinking of you -
i just chew harder
when wanting your face,
so
now you evoke for me
the iron taste of blood,
a clenched jaw,
a nosebleed
i can't stop

Friday, October 24, 2008

police get called

sirens swirling through the still dark street,
who knows
where or what or whether
the cop just felt like running
a red light
or whether the red is blood
reflected in the blue and white
night light
on the pavement

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

the time has come to say these things

ad infinitum
until the brain stops responding
when you drift back to the subject
and i hear
what you're saying, but
i just can't care
anymore
about what you have to say.
talking like, what if
i have kids &how will my
fucked-up mental case
of a mind handle
that scenario?

all the while saying, i
don't quite fit into your picture

but you're the one who started bringing
up potential offspring

and maybe it's lodged
in your mind, because
however briefly,
i did carry for you
unintentionally,
unknowingly, until
it was at an end

and i suppose i'm not
the only one still wondering
what would
that have been like,
you and me

i mean, really

Thursday, October 16, 2008

dryness in winter

i wonder
how long it will take
to stop bleeding,
how many
handkerchiefs i'll dirty
and leave stained for you,
whether any
of the marks we make
will fade.
how many days
holding my hand over my face
so when blood runs down my nose
no one will ask
if they see,
i wonder
what are the lengths to which
you will go
to run from me

Monday, October 13, 2008

tracks

the wrong end of town,
i don't mean bad
just opposite
side of the city,
where it is all too apparent
i do not belong
from the strange glances i accrue
walking in my winter coat of wool
my office shoes stark
against the shifting gravel
of a supermarket lot
with a worn sign,
three letters on the face
and the stamp
of poverty
on all the faces

Friday, October 10, 2008

cavity

i imagine it is something like
what a heart patient must feel -
ribs cracked apart, sewn shut
around a chamber
necessarily larger
to fit the hands that molded it.

a chest must gape far
to remove
all of what you left in me.

so i walk through the room with
the peculiar feeling of a weight
removed,
the space beneath the
breastbone hollowed. scooped out,
sanitized and clean
for its occupant.

there is little that remains.

now i hold my chest high to hide
the fragile nature of its incurved bones
the ribs that fractured beneath
your hands, on the coldest night
of winter. the ache
of a cavity in a tooth.

i bite down harder in hopes
the pain might dissolve
into the sudden rush of fire.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

something out of nothing

i wonder
how anything
can be made from loneliness,
from nothing at all,
how something can spring
from a lack
of something precious.
and when i drive
all thoughts from my mind
in some pathetic attempt to pretend
i don't ache
for another so hard my teeth clench
involuntarily in the night when
what little sleep i get
fails to throw
my body into any port of solace,
no
nothing springs from the tension sprung
tight-wound in my aching spine
there's no such thing as something
made from an entity
that only subtracts.
in the morning when
i wake, head pounding, memories
mere blurs
and i stare into that mirror,
loneliness is not a component part,
there are no parts
with holes that need the filling
but some things can contain
emptiness, yes
and when i stare into my eyes,
that is the only thing
i see looking back.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

automated autopilot

if i never stop
i will not have to process anything
but what must proceed through
in orderly fashion -
the march of days melding
into a steady delirious deluge
of information
i let pour through,
although it will not
touch me.
i live life
in a haze of things i take
to forget you
and i wonder
how much of this year
will be left to slumber
in the dungeons of my mind,
while i try to get a few
pieces back
from the ravages of time.
but don't try too hard,
lest every piece
i tried to bury
might resurrect somehow,
and claw its way
to the surface
like a wild thing i'd
go out of my way to smother,
if only
i could get close enough
to put
the pillow to your face