My fate seems to have become sitting in a corner writing poems in my head for someone who is gone. Hoping that tonight will be the night that you will need me, or come to your senses, or decide to break the rules, or something. But it won't come. The phone stays silent. So does my room. And I have already begun the process of becoming what I am not to leave behind what I was. That someone who was consumed by someone else brushing lips with someone who belongs to someone else screaming "This is not you! This. Is. Not. You!" at myself to no avail. Tim was drunk and staggering. The girl with a figure like a cello and a jiggle like jello was beckoning his singles into her g-string and I was grinning. It was a ruse. But I was grinning. The band played late and I wanted to tell you about the joys of that night. I wanted to hate your absence but paint pictures with my words in great detail for you to read with your ears as to make you feel not so far away. And not so alone. But we are alone now. Aren't we? All of us? Surrounded by friends who can't hold you like one person did once long ago. I am left now in bars and kilts and smokes and paper flowers and long hours and spread too thin and glowing screens and words magically appearing on them and the machine gun click of my composition at the tip of my fingers and choosing between librarians and whores and similes and metaphors. But for now? The phoenix is not coming. Lazarus needs his rest. I don't want to hear about tomorrow being a new day. I want to focus on how exactly I am going to force myself out of bed in the morning. So, for now. I am going to sleep and dream of a better time, either past or future, wake up and get out of bed. And be one day closer to who i will be and one step further away from who I was. Which when you really think about it? Isn't so bad... ¶ 12:16 AM 3 comments
Waiting still. She can wait for years. Wait through storms, and presidencies, and tears. Wait through the painful images Dar will cast on the wall off your mind that the projector of our past is pointed at. We have no screen. No false pretenses about what these images will do to the walls of my mind..
Heart...
Mind. I never seem to mind. I just lie to myself about my ability to negotiate how I feel. Bloody knuckles in my head are just as bad as the ones on my hands. Either way it is a mark. The way my inability to control my anger will leave its brand. I am afraid of you finding out that I can't wait like you. I am not like Christ. I won't hang for anything. I just break limbs off of trees and swipe them at the sky and declare that I can't wait... but I can stand. And I can wipe the blood off of my lip and onto the cuff of my sleeve and wish horrible things. And you can kick me. And I will stand. And you can kick me and I will stand. One more time than you can kick me. I will keep a running tally of how many times you kick me or failed me or failed to break me by carving words into the back of my eyes that I will see when I close them to sleep. Because even sleep won't let me wait. Wait. Weight that pulls me down, like millions of little fingers wrapped up in yellow nicotine on porches across the country. Leaving memory smells in my coat that has fallen apart more than once. And I stitch it up, because I won't let it go. I need it to keep me from getting cold. And to carry my blood when I wait too. Just different than you. And in your stillness, I can never seem to catch up. But don't stop. I will be awhile. I have to get up a few more times than you do between here and done. So don't. Because, if you did? You'd be waiting still. Through storms, and presidencies, and tears. Because I am going to have to heal for years. ¶ 5:44 PM 1 comments
Sometimes we wear our brands on our backs as plainly as our hearts on our sleeves. Hers are cut deep. She never wears white because the wounds always seem to be fresh and bleeding and the label works its way through. No matter what. Seems that the words are different for everyone but amount to the universe’s sick version of “kick me”. Doesn’t it? And our titles fluctuate. Giving those around us excuses. Like he’s this way because.. or let it go. She’s a …. So that’s why. And sometimes our labels get distorted. Hers says Womyn. Mine sometimes says man… or coward.. or child… or schizophrenic.. or quitter. But “man”? Man… that one can sting. Values forced down my throat about being a man. What does that mean exactly? Or sometimes I am “the man” and that is good or bad depending on the color of my skin verses theirs, regardless of the color the label bleeds. Sometimes it makes me a villain. Sometimes it makes me a warrior. Only I choose if it makes me, me. And I have had enough of it forced down my throat. Developing a bulimia about your ideas of what I am by the name you place upon me. Same for her. But harder. The one letter changed defines her nature but not her person.. Woman. Womyn. Hmm. Like a cross between womb and amen. Amen. Forcing her steps through a world that will never see her for beautiful because she wears her brand like an anthem. Knowing the subtle definition of the change of one letter. It asks a question you know? The letter… It left what it was for what it could be by asking “Y”. I don’t know. But for today can I be “child”? And you can be too. And you and I can kiss each others wounds and just play?
¶ 7:24 PM 3 comments
