Tuesday 10/31/2006 11:31:00 PM

Every week without fail we drive to the supermarket. To scoff at overripe melons. And finger slices of yellow at the deli. So many different varieties of cheese. I can never remember which ones I like. So she tells me to risk it. $3.00 for a quarter pound of discovery. Bankruptcy is measured more by what you keep than what you spend.

Maybe. Just maybe. You don't even need a sandwich. That same tired lunch I always have. Cutting the bread in half. Who eats half a sandwich anyway? There is permission in starvation.

To gorge.

We spend so much time shopping for poison. Wondering why the cure doesn't return our calls.

10/31/2006 10:23:00 PM

He was talking. Spewing jigsaw pieces. While I busied myself searching for the edges. I started at the buttons. The numbers that had seduced me into listening again. Just like pressing on a wound to try to stop the bleeding. I kept calling him.

Cataloguing his stories. Filling in the silhouette of his voice. One drunken story at a time. Nearly making him real.

The clock always stopped at 11:01.

When we'd brush away the moments that had dropped. Gather what silence was left. And say good night.

To each other.

So many times.

The acoustics of the flesh suddenly obvious.

In the trill of the dial tone.

Monday 10/30/2006 11:54:00 PM

I watched. The silence stampeding. Faulty restraints betraying skin. I measured the distance between my toes and the edge of the bed. While the ceiling counted the few hairs left on the top of his head. As they fought each other for the follicles still open.

I checked my underwear for signs that I was new at it. Not knowing what to look for. The yellow lines turned to white and back again. I knew it was quite a ways to travel just to be used, but hurt had other designs.

There would never be a right time. So this one would have to suffice.

I took a mental inventory of things I had to lose.

This was all that was left.

10/30/2006 11:36:00 PM

the cow.
the queen.
all victims
of skin.

i laid
the rug down.
in echoes
of our feet.

we swam.
through the moment.
without stopping
to breathe.

episode after
episode, of
killing the fawn
to revive the forest.

we had so much
invested in those lies.

10/30/2006 12:20:00 AM

We shoved the bed toward the mirror. It looked closer the far that it got. We counted the pictures on the walls. One. Two. None. If they have to be taken. Not gifts. We waited through the commercials. For the bits of show they'd give us. Choking on a metaphor we couldn't articulate. The circle we'd drawn. In permanent marker.

The chill from the open door murmuring in plastic gulps. Playground swings recently abandoned. The laughter still looking for somewhere else to go. People still young enough to use that squeak as their catapult.

He wasn't finished, but I was. Even behind closed doors the residue has begun to breed. In benign huffs it coughed out songs I hadn't heard for days. I was going deaf in stages. The more he spoke to me.

I'd been watering a cactus. Hoping someday it would let me touch it.

I was prepared for everything.

Ready for nothing.

The hour still sober enough that I saw. How the lock had been picking me.

There was no key in him.

10/30/2006 12:06:00 AM

He slipped into his paintbrush and began to read the floor. I looked for the words he saw written upon it. But I think I only understand the language of the walls.

The color quietly percolated inside its can. While we fought with the admitting how far we were from accepting it. I'd never be the lamb. He'd not be the lion.

No roar.

No fear.

Love is just a partial lie. Hate is the rest of it.

I've never hated anyone.

Sunday 10/29/2006 12:14:00 AM

You told your turn to wait. Carousel. Horses all tamed. Ferris wheel big enough to see. All the places I'd never go. The floor finally gave. I mean, we tried walking on the ceiling for a while. But gravity always wins.

There was every reason to be angry, but we were too tired. From searching the shadows on the walls. For where we used to put our things.

Her arms hugged her ribcage in a futile attempt to keep warm. While the window laughed. With traffic so dense. Everyone so busy going nowhere.

We had ashtrays worth of guilt for the lives that expected more. We had liars. We had wisemen. The curl of footsteps against the pillow's grin.

Were we ever that young. Have we ever been that resilient. To wake up early the next morning and begin building the floors we'd torn up only the night before.

You walk, I run. Stumbling toward a horizon that won't wait.

For words to catch up with faces.

Saturday 10/28/2006 12:10:00 AM

I applied him my lips in dabs. Then blotted. Like lipstick. There were songs that were waiting on my press. In a thick rouge. Stubborn capillaries trying to survive the weather we bring upon them. And the intimidating sound of footsteps on naked plywood. Ghosts running through empty lives. As heaven stumbles after them.

I went back and forth. Trying to decide. Which cables to use. Every footfall a scream.

He wipeed me off.

Of his lips. Nothing left except the residue. Of empty shoes in the shdaow of the bed. Debating amongst themselves about the stench.

I apply the moments in sections. Tattoos biting deep. In failing fevers that leave me feeling more cheated than sick.

Lies abandoned on my doorstep wait for the day when they'll learn to walk.

He had his crutches all ready to go. But I'm still making mine.

Friday 10/27/2006 12:17:00 AM

In sturdy vices
I swam.

Long sleeves
not enough.

The demon
with his lunchbox
working like
the rest of us.

On asides.

Unwilling to
trust the stage.

In scenes that
pool as calm and
strategic.

As any liar.

She fluted the
word through a
purse in her lips.

That alone wasn't
a prison, so much
as a an escape.

not that i didn't know.

I'd just never heard
someone say it.

As real as she did.

Thursday 10/26/2006 11:56:00 PM

I was playing solitaire. Fondling that ubiquitious deck. When she asked me to change the song. To something less vigilant. So many words to keep track of she said. Like they're writing a novel with my ear drums. I don't understand the words, but I know what they're saying. Too well.

I was emptying the ashtray when he tried to prove it wasn't just itch. He was so sure I was special. I almost believed him.

Like the corduroy that's always there between its thighs as the heart will strut. Always chaperoned by the sigh of movement. The water always comes out of the tap only tepid. We have to wait.

Wait. For it to get hot.

The balsam turmoil that builds these mansions. With the match sticks we've discarded.

I was playing expert. Satyr. Friend. Until the curtain came down. And I was the only one in front of it.

Still playing.

My game of solitaire.

10/26/2006 12:34:00 AM

Love. Like gift wrap for the pain. Sex the Christmas tree.

I think the metaphor is self-explanatory.

He was correct. I'm no good to anyone this way. He tore on his best silver lining and began to quote books I'd never read. Or didn't remember.

Faulkner was my friend for a while. Dostoevsky too. Dead writers are the only ones who know what to say when nothing matters anymore.

His words chimed in my deliberations. But it wasn't encouragement I needed.

All I wanted was to know the reason. They listen when it rains. To songs I don't get to hear. Why they talk when no one listens. How they bite down into the sour of that moment and still find a way to swallow it.

With a smile of their faces.

Wednesday 10/25/2006 11:51:00 PM

The twins would chortle out of sync. The huff of decisions siphoning in his throat. Like pistons chugging against the throw of equilibrium. I wasn't lost. I just didn't want to know where I was going.

If only it were that easy.

To ignore the raven as it warns. Fools of what they are. In every frown of ink that threatens to pull the skin from empty pages. As each curve sighed from my hand to remember a face that was already gone.

The crab would laugh out loud. To himself. In a panicked euphoria that always betrayed my ability to care for him. Cradling stillborn lovers with tired arms.

Like he had finished living a long time ago.

Part of me pitied him. While the other was full of envy.

So I laid my ear to his chest and listened. To the thump of everything getting older.

10/25/2006 01:03:00 AM

He turned the dial in the opposite direction. While I watched. Waiting for the siren to scream. How wrong it was. It wasn't long before every song had the same name.

I number the days by TV shows. And wait for the floor to be installed. So we can crawl again. I number the days by the lovers I can still name. And wait for the walls to be finished. So that I can hang those pictures. Finally put all those frames to use.

We can sell ourselves on those whitewashed fences only so long.

Every sip was a click of the shutter. Every touch a photograph. It's never been my art. But it's humbling to be the subject of someone else's.

Slowly we dug a path away from the seashells. Step by step. The wind opened its fist to let us move.

Till we found ourselves still walking. Trying to disregard the sand in our shoes. Staring at the car and asking ourselves why we'd paid to park in spaces we already owned.

It didn't matter if it was right. But I didn't know how young I was until those words struck my ears.

That lightning bolt of recognition. That promised to strike.

Tuesday 10/24/2006 11:55:00 PM

And then
everything was quiet.

The ceiling crashed
into the floor.
With a bulimic cough.
Angular and anemic.

The caviar of so many hearts.

Dead things
served on crackers.
Their only flavor
in how much they cost.

He was a priest.
And a comedian.
And everything else
all people are.

I was a child.
And a poet.
And everything

I've always been
since the day
that I was born.

We were laying there
in a sea of skin.
Like the strangers we were.

When the door opened
and the walls
all decided to fall.

And everything

was quiet again.

Monday 10/23/2006 11:42:00 PM

He stuck his arm out the window and waited for the wind to change direction. I watched the hairs on his arms trying to decide if they would agree with him. I watched for a beer or two. While I collected the change we'd made of my clothes. Trying to dress myself in the pennies left of those dollar bills.

I touched his finger to my lip. Wanting him to feel the ice before it had melted. Through a series of mirrors we watched the eclipse. But I still didn't understnad why we couldn't look directly at it.

The kitten cut her path through the concrete. The poise of her dance broken by the vertical blinds. Realizing every precaution we take to keep the danger out there, holds in any exisitng threat.

After a while he pulled his arm inside. Looking quite sure where to go next.

Sometimes I still wonder if he ever got there.

Sunday 10/22/2006 11:44:00 PM

We counted our way to the door. In forked maneuvers of the lips. The only fact in life is that it is a cumulative treason. One moment indefinitely betraying the next. In every tiny way that we attempt to love each other. And all the roadblocks that convince us we did.

We didn't count the bottles as the bed swum beneath us. Wave after wave drilling into the choke of thoughtless escapes. In the luxury of my stupor I asked him how it felt. To be inside someone.

I was absent when it finally won. But I was present for the surrender. If it's still fair to calculate it in those terms. If it's still amenable to say what a pleasure it was to lose him.

In my timeline there are no minutes. Or hours. Just people. Lives to barter for smaller treats. Milky Ways in old pillowcases failing under the paper beards of sober pirates. Plastic hooks ringing the doorbells of strangers. And the sweet, sweet assurance of chocolate in every intrusion.

I didn't expect you to know I wasn't myself then. I just thought it'd be different once I was.

10/22/2006 11:11:00 PM

We were on the twelfth floor. Her reason on the other side of the world. We bought six packs of brown eggs and cereal with cartoons we didn't recognize. She bought her wine in little bottles from an indian woman with a british accent. We walked for miles not knowing the name of the road we were on. But always ended up where we'd planned.

She got extra xanax from a dutch doctor who had no reason to fear consequence. And then we walked in the maze for too long before realizing we could dig under the walls.

We pawned our home off on our neighbor's sister. Whose boyfriend's wife was pregnant. And made sure to take the last of our coffee with us. Since the 7-11 wouldn't be in our driveway anymore.

It was hard to steer. Always wanting to look back. It was hard, but I had to do it. Home was waiting for us to catch up with it.

10/22/2006 12:21:00 AM

Later on, you know. After we've watched some tv. Squeezed all that dark out of the floors. Laced up our other feet.

He was pale. Caught in an ambivalent sleep. I tried to be inconspicuous as he huffed his path through the nightmare. While I wondered what the monsters were. If they at all resembled me.

All scrambled up with a song or some. Their lips chasing words I'd already used. The heavy thud of dust escaping boxes we never named. A glass skin on every picture. A paper skeleton inside each one.

We loped through the banging in pajamas made of rock. One blink at a time it promised to happen eventually.

There in our everything. We clung to the edge. Heroes with bitten nails. Little girls in daddy's trousers. Searching the ceiling for footprints.

Because nothing is where it should be.

Burnt toast deals out a hollow aroma. Of faltering consequence. As the crumbs dive from the toaster like buoys made of glass.

And there we are. Playing poker with our memories of star trek.

Hoping a title will erupt in all this chaos.

Saturday 10/21/2006 11:00:00 PM

I was having a bowl of lasagna. I put whatever I can into bowls. I need the high sides to keep in the frenzy. The mania of self-preservation that attaches itself to every meal. The part of myself I hate the most. The one who doesn't just live, but actually goes so far as to justify wanting to. With popcorn bullshit about kids and dogs and men in bars that won't just try you on for the night.

There was coffee. There always is. Pour. Drink. Pour. Piss. While the walls paint our shadows soft. In curdled bundles much smaller than we think we are. And he measures. While I sip. He fixes while I wonder. How much damage it takes to get him to start.

Words ooze like pus. Every finger an open sore. I have to stop him as he begins his repairs.

There's nothing wrong here.

10/21/2006 01:13:00 AM

It was a pretty ugly silence. The depth of his grin flapping. Wings that wouldn't leave the ground. I waited for his approval. To see if he'd let me leave.

Much to my disappointment he had no objections. The bunt was fair. The pitcher tried to cover first, but the runner was faster than the ball.

It was too accomodating. How those skins let us wear them. I wanted to know what was wrong. And I wanted to forget.

Lions purring too full. Cubs everywhere. Imaging the kill.

Like we're alive.

Not the dead in their eyes when they look at me.

I tried to tell him I'd never learn, but he didn't believe me.

It's not like there are stairs for where we were going. Or masks convenient enough to wear. There's only the fall. How many cushions are left in those pins.

Concrete lips struggling to show jagged teeth. Like we matter now. Or ever did. To walls that never asnwer. Eyes that don't blink.

It's not like I knew him. Fragile anchor under my bow. It's just that I knew what he meant.

Cold eyes try to decipher what can't be written.

I'm ready.

Ready to lose him again.

Friday 10/20/2006 12:21:00 AM

He tasted like eden. But bit back like nod. There were eyes on every corner. In choking kaleidoscopes. That never stopped changing.

There was the frown in his brow. The pause in his ignition. As we set off. Hoping to get far enough away from whatever it was we were.

The dolls made their porcelain faces. All dressed in delicate gowns. The hour proposed its alternatives. While we danced. Like children orphaned on the playground. Empty swings scrolling softly to the rhythm of the wind.

I always thought time had more power. That it would make me different. Like it did before.

By the time I realized it was hopeless it was dark enough to see.

All the lights she'd left on. Trying to be someone else's daughter.

Thursday 10/19/2006 11:16:00 PM

I was staring at the dashboard. While it mouthed words I didn't understand. Like where we were going. And how much longer til we got there.

I was listening to the rear view mirror. As it puked our past in bite size pieces. One second after the other vomiting out of our lives.

And there we were. Fingering the darkness for an orgasm she'd never have. People. Persons. Whens.

Cut flowers sweating out the last of their color into stagnant water. In complimentary vases. Little cards in strange handwriting echoing a familiar voice.

Words held hostage as we take the pulse of the corpse. What is dead? What is alive?

I can only learn one funeral at a time.

10/19/2006 12:27:00 AM

A long time ago I had something to say. Shame I never did. The porch fairy would pause under the halogen to count the seconds between the last and the next knock. And I would be her metronome. As she struggled to keep in time with what had stopped.

It seemed as good a night as any to lay there and be entertained. Scooping the ice cream hard from the carton. Staring at the bowl. Wondering if it would ever melt. Whether or not I'd be able to wait.

I tried to say it nicely, but I was never good at that.

When I was young enough. And life was still a quest. Gravel punching the teeth on tires spinning fast. It seemed there was a lot to have. And even more to want.

There were even moments that it seemed I had it.

If only I'd known then what it was.

Tuesday 10/17/2006 11:42:00 PM

The thing is he was a big part of my life for several years. Unfortunately I was only a small part of his.

The funny thing about people is that they say things because they think they're the right thing to say. They lie because sometimes it's the right thing to do.

But mostly they just lie because they don't want to lose.

But what most people don't realize is that they're the ones being lied to.

It's always someone else. Or at least that's what we tell ourselves.

The thing is the mountain was never a challenge. It was always just a waste of time. Climbing all that way. Getting to the top only to have down to look forward to.

The one thing I've never understood is connection. That necessity to stay together. Even when it hurts. I've done it, but never could figure out the appeal.

I think it's a better feeling to be broken than to heal. Since we're all conditioned to be victims. Especially women.

It's so much more comforting to be able to focus on what's causing us pain. Than it is to go out into the world and look for some unknown that won't.

Take away all the things that keep me here. Glued to the moon. I've always been on the sidelines Observing. More content with seeing how it's done. Than actually doing it.

I wasn't a good friend. I was just pages looking for someone to number them.

I was someone who had everything to lose.

We were watching some porn when suddenly it occured to me. The thing is I don't care why it hurt. Or how it managed to stop.

I only care if it'll ever hurt that much again.

10/17/2006 12:42:00 AM

The throw rug was gone. And the floor stared up at me with malice. The apples bobbed for had been eaten. As eden looked on in disbelief. Children wearing their parents skins.

It was soft. As tender as the last time we touched. And it was hard. As hard as the last time. We made love.

There's no place left to walk.

No floor. No walls. Just knives scraping plates waiting to be washed. Just like we live our lives. Leaving the dirty dishes in the sink.

And then complaining when they're so difficult to clean.

I suppose I could've tried harder to extract destinations from all these journeys. But I could never see us going anywhere.

So full of many feasts that always left me hungrier than when I'd begun.

It's a profound poverty. Learning not to.

Expect any better.

Monday 10/16/2006 11:27:00 PM

The great thing about Halloween is that everyone has license to be whomever or whatever they want to be for one night. The problem is as adults we're either giving out candy or escorting our children as they beg for it.

What we need is a new day. One where grown ups can put on their chosen costumes. One where we really become someone else for the time being. Not just pretending. We need to feel it. The extra chlorophil in the grass on the other sides of those fences. Find out for ourselves if it's just as pale or if it really is better.

We need a holiday where people can find out what it's like to be someone else. Whether it's better or worse. Or just the same story written in a different way.

I'd change costumes if I could. But I wouldn't want to be a super hero. Nor a famous person. I'd just want to be someone who's happy with their life.

I'd want to be someone who doesn't need to be someone else.

10/16/2006 12:20:00 AM

At the top of the stairs. Everything below. Nothing above. Staring like a star down from the heavens. At a world that's just a distant gum drop stuck in jaws of broken candy. Empty wrappers rustling like autumn leaves in their furtive suicides. And we always seem to die the same way. On the same schedule. Only far less gracefully.

We're always dying when it's the last thing we want to do. Always just beginning to live when there's no time to enjoy it.

At the top of the stairs. Or at the bottom. The only difference being how things appear. The bow in her hair as I requisition the ink. To prove the shapes that are already there. In the stoke of the darkness as it breathes on the shadows. In the cups of the clouds as the moon gallops through windows stalled.

We bent down and picked up the little pieces the blade had left. The sound of making it fit louder than I could stand.

We had the stairs to measure by. Twelves steps between making love and tearing it down. The zenith and the nadir of our sickness. But I was the only one counting. The only one who saw we were too high.

I admitted he could try on Saturday. It was a big deal. Just admitting it was possible. He might not be gone.

I was too kind again.

I was at the top of the stairs looking down. The earth just a wrinkle in the corner of my lips. As they mouthed the words. About making choices. Before I am made by them.

I looked down. From the top of my stairs. More certain than I'd ever been before. About the altitude. And the distance. From here to now. I looked down the same way I'd always done. But this time I thought it didn't look like so far to fall.

Or didn't care if it was.

Sunday 10/15/2006 12:14:00 AM

Three days later. I sat wondering how I'd hurt him. The scuff of lovers against swollen hearts. We staggered every seam, but still the floor decided not to support us.

I thought the truth must be wrong. Because it's only ever betrayed us. Distracted santa claus's caught in chimneys that suddenly stop. Before the fire.

It's not funny, but it is. How easily I chip his veneer. How the song in his eye endlessly skips on that, but glides right over all the grooves he's cut in mine. That plastic curtain breathes with one side and forgets the other. It's just the other side. It's not there until we need it.

Three days later. Living in the belly of the whale. I was ready to be digested. It's like trying to walk on the walls. Talking to him. Don't touch the floor. It belongs to him. He's all splinters. And it's my job to get them.

Three day later. It wasn't that he was gone. It was that he'd never been there.

If only three days were all it took.

To forget.

Saturday 10/14/2006 10:33:00 PM

Standing in place. The statue on my face. The clown at my knees. Fighting with the walls for a little space to expand. Standing in place. Waiting for the edges to exhale. Let me move again.

Standing in place. Like the hands on a broken clock. Fooling everyone. Making them believe it's all about to happen. Standing. Swallowed by the wall. As it yawns. Waiting for the hour that isn't coming. Sleeping under painted blankets. So the shivers are concealed.

Standing in place. Arms crossed. Chin to chest. Watching the edges procreate.

Anywhere I stand. They're multiplying.

Standing in place. Following the edges.

10/14/2006 12:44:00 AM

It happened while I wasn't paying attention. Anyway. I needed something to do.

Skin like fabric wincing as we tugged on precarious stitches. Pieces sworn together falling undone. The gore of the needle becoming apparent as the threads slithered free of its tunnels.

We weren't doing anything except looking for something else to do.

Shoulders on the window sill. While the rain tapped out its morse code on the glass. His breath silently translating every dot. Every dash.

While we stewed in the something else we had done.

Paper fingers coaxing the flame. Until.

They were consumed.

By something else. We'd not anticipated.

The screech of the dark as it comes lumbering into an empty life. Where passengers once boarded. But now all tickets are trash. It sings sometimes. Opera. In languages I can't identify. So I listen for the sound of something else.

We both can hear.

Little words in giant pockets. Lost in the strut of copious lives. Little words. Written on cold legs. That don't remember. Maybe never knew.

Anything other than something else to do.

I had discarded my jeans and still wasn't naked.

Not yet.

But soon.

And I couldn't think of anything I'd rather do.

Thursday 10/12/2006 11:40:00 PM

There's always a whisper in the room. Coughing from between the inside and the outside walls. A scent of reason still on the claws of the damsel who makes herself useful pretending to need what she's always had.

In the thoughts that expire while we busy ourselves groping at what we'll never hold, there is touch. The treason of surrender.

Strength making us vulnerable. Weakeness making us strong.

Close enough to the song. Drowning in moon. The girl in the doorway looks. For steps. Up and down both go in the same direction. The world isn't unkind. It just doesn't know. Who I am.

The ultimate truth being we are always together.

And forever alone.

The only thimg that is certain are the walls.

10/12/2006 11:25:00 PM

On both sides of the pen.
It's right there in front of me.
Two noons later and any
name I try to give it.

Fails.

Waiting for the
slope to gently cup its hands.
Falling because it's
The fastest way to

Get there.

On either end of the room
It pitched in quiet furies.
In cotton coffins grinned
By the moon, while every window

Looked in.

And saw nothing.

Tuesday 10/10/2006 11:17:00 PM

We were waiting for the floor. Standing on the walls. Wondering if we'd ever walk. We sat through the cermony. In straight-backed chairs. That futile baptism. That inevitably precedes ditry t-shirts on the floor. Unsaddled beds being ridden.

If it was broken.

There will always be glass. If you can walk. There are always pieces you won't find until you've stepped on them. There in those floors you thought were gone.

In lies that played like expensive phonographs. Too perfet to tell the copy from the source.

We're still waiting on the floor. We always have been. Ever since we first set foot on those walls.

It's never enough just trying to walk.

Monday 10/09/2006 11:57:00 PM

There were so many places we couldn't walk until. Waiting for window to blink. Prove it was another day. A different shadow in the bed. There were pilots in every corner of the room. But all they could do was land.

So we finished our drinks and decided that life had shrugged us off. And we were just as content. To lay there. And just be. That empty nightgown of hers.

She didn't want to sleep in anymore.

It wasn't like I had a dream in mind anyway.

There were so many needles to choose from in all that numbness. It was futile to try to name them.

10/09/2006 12:16:00 AM

I eased into the stop light at the helm of my strange little car and laughed out loud as my past smirked back at me. So indebted to who I was before. And all the people who saw in me then who I could be.

I took 35 like I always do. The long way there. We paid $5 to park in an empty lot. Only to walk way down passed the train tracks to eat. French toast and eggs in the little diner that's always crowded. And then we walked some more.

Until we found the kids that were singing beatle's songs in front of the hardware store. And we sunk ourselves deep inside the crowd that had formed on the corner. And watched while the cars turned left like they were making rights. Cause it's a one way street.

All their windows open and their heads poking out as they marvelled at how big a small town could be.

And I thought I don't live here, but I live near enough.

To not be surprised when the farther I go the nearer it gets.

I looked to the right and laughed. Hey! Look at that! It's someone I thought was gone. But there they are. Even though they're not.

He'd been busy changing his world while all I could do was wait for my world to change me.

Maybe we'll pass each other again sometime when his store isn't closed. And they'll be more than a red light's time to get reacquainted.

But even if not, it was a pleasant surprise to stumble upon how well he is. Now I know I was right to take the long way home.

There's just no point in going anywhere until you're ready to enjoy the best part of the journey.

The getting there.

And the going home.

Sunday 10/08/2006 12:16:00 AM

I'm not sure if I was ever really there. Those awkward eyes deciding what of me they saw. It's like sleeping with your eyes open. Pretending you don't know it's all a dream. The taste of tomorrow sour on their lips. The chair building in their thoughts. Where I will never sit. I couldn't take them to bed with me only to wake up and find they were gone. It was better to see them out while my courage was still on tap.

Soft demons in hard masks. Ringing doorbells I thought didn't work anymore.

I'm humble. I'm honest. When you ask me how hard it is. It was, but isn't anymore. Why look for hurt when it no longer offers any reward?

I listen. To the sound of him saying nothing. Because it's familiar. I listen to the pale of his thoughts as they become his ghosts.

I listen.

As if I know what he's saying.

I listen.

Because I feel the stiff in his throat when the years measure their surrender.

I listen.

Because I can hear what isn't in his words.

I listen.

Because I want to know.

Saturday 10/07/2006 01:25:00 AM

The hour gasped. Choked on stamina. The backdoor winced perfectly. As he trundled through its yawn. To find us there. Painted like creases into the contour of the sheets. Peering down into the throat of his stare. As it tried to swallow what I'd fed it.

We were larva. We were drowning in the nest. The prick of wings needling their way out from beneath our skin. In little bites that never finish finding what's out there.

The traffic was there in my hand. I couldn't make a fist. The tighter I squeezed the more impotent my grasp. Words that try to take shape. Lives threatening to become real.

The whisper of choice as debate confesses. It never knew. Sober as any last words. The wind suddenly turned. And all I could do was watch the vane cock in a different direction. Holding my breath. So as not to influence.

Never nearer to. Never farther from.

Happiness.

Turning every llie into an excuse. When the table is full I will know at last what chair are left.

Friday 10/06/2006 12:14:00 AM

It's still summer enough. The thud of thought in every pore. Hot footprints on cold sidewalks. Soft wrists pressed deep into the corner.

There in the straight of his hair it seemed more than real. Lisping chins clicking out their sos's. Not a bottle to spare. For even the most urgent of messages. We never wanted to be rescued anyway.

Porch lights stare. Broken moons on our heels. As we gallop in our stumbles.

Clutching.

The stem. While the petals look up.

Corner prophets boasting leaves yet to drop. Little houses with windows big enough. To see everything out there.

Little houses with windows so big you don't know where to look.

Thursday 10/05/2006 12:33:00 AM

Leave it for later.

It'll fit better after you've taken off your arms. Mapping the slope of the mattress by the thrust of your sleeves.

I had captured the broken bottle in the bucket, but bits of glass were all I had. Everything once inside it slithering down the sidewalk toward roads still swimming in rains I'd never touch.

Leave it alone he stressed. As I picked at the edges of the scab. When the first spits of red appeared I knew he was wrong. It wasn't time to heal yet.

I'll be strong again once I'm through being weak.

I'll leave it. For as long as I can.

The bucket in the meadow. With all those holes in it.

Wednesday 10/04/2006 01:52:00 AM

His humpty dumpty was still on the wall. I wanted something to matter, but it was no use.

I knew it would break. Wouldn't be put back together again.

The only thing do was wait.

For the inevitable.

Be ready with out brooms.

He wouldn't fall. Wouldn't crack until he was ready. As to who would clean it up. I don't know. But it wouldn't be me.

Too many humpty's with pieces I never saw. That snuck under my skin. Dragging out those wounds long after they should've kissed their last dandelion.

I couldn't sell it. Couldn't give it away.

So I let them take it.

10/04/2006 12:16:00 AM

There were little splinters of glass everywhere. Harsh confetti to end a cruel parade. And a puddle forming that smelled as much like salvation as it did surrender. Filling the tiny room I had taken with me on my trip.

Lovers. Addicts. You show me the difference.

Strangers swivel on their stools and I find myself staring at a friend. The sidewalk begins to sprint and I can't keep up. Don't want to. I'll wait for when they're ready to come back.

I will drink from the broken glass. Even though it's quickly losing what I want. Because in my mind, no matter what happens to it, it still the only thing that is whole.

I've always turned too fast.

Now there's finally proof. In the piss I left on the sidewalk that still smells like heaven when I get close too it.

Tuesday 10/03/2006 12:16:00 AM

There's no now. Just then. Pale rocks with missing fingers. Pointing at what's already gone.

It's easy. Saving myself. I do it every night. Letter by letter. As the poison synthetizes in my blood. Changes my past and my future. Negating the girl I once was in favor of the woman I've become.

Sympathy. Danger. Loser. Savior. Stairway to heaven's back door. Pieces of a puzzle not ready to be solved.

His voice was magnanimous as it boiled over with disappointment. At my lack of desire to recover.

He said it was my own fault.

That it didn't change.

I suppose it was.

Just like it's the blind man's fault that he can't see where he's going.

He said it was my fault.

I still believe him sometimes.

10/03/2006 12:00:00 AM

The silence spit like a shotgun. Spraying tiny bullets everywhere. I looked at the floor and began to imagine the footsteps that had crossed it. Over all the years we'd been going in and out of each other's lives.

Yea, I know, just what's wrong with me. But I don't know how to fix it.

Life landed on my nose. A nervous butterfly fretting over the ramifications in its sneeze. How years from now it might make me. Us. Everything.

Different.

Pushing through the turnstyles tthat stab at our groins. As we hurry to catch the train that goes with the ticket in our hands. Don't know where. But I'd like to go just the same.

If it'll take me.

Even just half the way.

So that I could look back on the path it's traversed. And find in the distance what I never saw while I was there.

In costumes every day. One night. Just one night to be ourselves.

Counting the hours. Numbering the thirst. As it consumes.

Monday 10/02/2006 12:33:00 AM

I buttoned the cuffs on that suicide. Put on a new blazer. And began planning the next. I've never been naked except for when I tried to live. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Standing still. Waiting for the kiss of the bullet.

It wasn't sharp enough then. In that hollow room. Sparked with broken baths. And forgotten sex.

The paper puling itself from labored walls in a futile protest. I turned off the light, but it still wasn't dark enough. To cut that deep.

Make love to the razor. Convince it to penetrate.

Crawl into that dirty tub and let those thoughtless walls decide if it mattered. Run the water until it's deep enough. Shallow puddles at the edges of the porcelain tempting my drowning.

I wished that I was lost enough. To find the vein. Hurt enough to prove it wrong.

That dying wasn't something I had tried to do. But something they had done to me.

And every button had an address Where I could find it when I was strong enough to try again.

This suicide they sometimes refer to as life.

Sunday 10/01/2006 12:45:00 AM

The door yawned wide. Slow. As his heavy boots began to scrape the mat. The air breathed between us. In fetching grabs that stole my thoughts. The way a strong breeze breaks apart the dandelions.

I didn't want to ruin what had happened with what hadn't.

So I didn't say anything to him after that.

And I think he was happy again. To know that goodbye had come soon enough.

It was a beautiful wound. The kind that bleeds through the gauze faster than you can wrap it 'round. The familiar bite as the peroxide chews at your skin. The more it hurts the better it was.

It's not the genie in the lamp I fear. It's the three wishes.

There's nothing left to want.

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