race you to the docks

it’s moving it’s crawling it’s running it’s an obscene violation it’s just a police signal going whoo whoo whoo and there they are plugging their ears like they have nothing more to do than stand there trying to protect something they lose every day like they could hear a scream anyway they’d probably turn around and flee first chance they got that’s the kinda luck there is around here or is there such a thing as luck in a place with no juke machines and inflation is just outrageous but you always feel that pull towards something although it is easy to make it the linchpin of some secret existence where you hold onto everything so close to your vest that there’s no telling why you are even standing there trying to be responsible especially when it’s just become a speech you don’t even believe and every motion is motivated by trying to make the people you loved look bad in your light, what light, isn’t it just a stench? and falling night after night into bed with that stench has got to be a drag, no wonder those of you have instruments working to pick up the pieces, it’s become so dark blue there’s no such thing as evil or good not even a divide no more just crosses and arrows and hearts and they start to blend and the air felt so good today against my lips and my thought turned to waterlillies in a sense, but the greater purpose sometimes seems bended or just so on my mind i can’t even live or breathe without it turning at me and trying to get me to change, the changes are too fast, i hold on, i hold on, it’s the only constant now, the holding on to the change which whirls me around and instead of it being fun it gets so old so fast, and dizzy, did i mention dizzy? but i’m being pulled by the chain of events that i thought made up fate, that i thought was my own ideas but weren’t they all implanted at some time or another, and i fell in love with a complication instead of a life, isn’t that so rich, what a gas, or maybe it’s not normal, or is it normal, it’s question everyone asks themselves a lot, and mostly they can say anything and because there are so many damn people that say things of course what you are thinking is perfectly normal because the odds of your thought being said aloud before is so great with all these crowds of tv watching book reading observers festering around feeding on more and more information being saddled into us, personally i don’t know how anybody stands it! I mean really, people needing to learn a new status quota five times a day and a new upgrade on their system for how to deal with life or how about a new platitude for what your entire past meant- I’m sure the guy behind the desk specializes in that, right after he learns how to specialize in specializing, there are all kinds of tricks out there, believe that none of them work, oh and you are so right, you are always right honey, what am i saying, it’s getting a bit rocky on this road what if i crash, i can’t let that happen but why do i go so fast, why do i go so fast, is it a rush or can my heart not slow down, maybe something will tell me but all i know is that everything i see is so much more than i can hold or touch or say and you look at me like i’m ruining everything by not encompassing it with every phrase. you get upset by the details of the sculpting and what really happened was your jealousy ruined perfection, you were so angry that my details took me from you as you had been taken from another, but who cares that was history and that’s not gonna make the books so why bother dragging it up, mentioning anything at all, but then again it doesn’t seem okay to have all this blowback or to have nothing at all, how about a sensible sense of meaning, now that really is something i can actually say i dont see everyday…

To suffer without meaning.. without the “light in the tunnel” Go team! Whoo! Whoo!

With no access to a recording studio or to an audience of music listeners, I feel claustrophobic. I can’t let go of the encounters- the discerning, the frugal joy, the caresses, the sharing, the distress, the abandonment, and finally, the line of a flat heart that no longer beats- they have no place to go but to twist around inside of me, making future trips increasingly unsteady. Holding all that together is worse than holding a gun about to go off… It’s more than anybody should withstand and yet it’s what most people probably hold in all the time. Maybe it’s why after a certain amount of “hurt feelings,” whatever they do, hurt, or cause is justified by what screwed them over. Payback to the world and any person who enters your radar. But they don’t let anything go that way. Not even a small drift of grief is lifted..  Maybe there is an argument that they feel a certain rapport, even calmness, after bashing a girlfriends face into the window.  Finally, the bashed can share in the understanding! The isolation and pain! And, most of all, that dirty word- betrayal. Oh, such toughness! Such composure!!  In fact, they are doing the world a favor! They are ridding the world of victims. They are turning everybody into robots that don’t react to hurt. No more complaining! Good riddance! And no more modern art, with it’s depth of darkness alluring people to wear their feelings on their clothes instead of just ignoring it like they are supposed to! Do whatever you have to, but don’t be so sensitive, it’s an insult to the humanity they lost.

Sleepwalking

I sleepwalk through my motions, drifting but unable to fit in or lead a normal life. I keep to myself. The detachment grows like a tumor until every cell of my body is fending it off. Insecurity reigns. There is no security, not here, not now. Friction in every movement, in any desire I feel to not be sleeping through my fate. I’ve given up on control or goals and just impatiently observe what’s left. Those who cannot fix themselves know that things will get worse so they don’t bother to try and dry the blood. Why worry about a trickle of blood when a leg might get chopped off any second? Sometimes everyone I ever knew or love seems to be behind a curtain and I can’t remember the connection I had with them or worse- them with me. I cut through these memories with all the tenacity of molasses. I move forward as though trying to walk through glue.  I no longer feel much, not even blame or anger at whatever situation this is. To feel I’d have to wake up, and sleeping I don’t feel like any prince will come along and wake me up. And if I was under some spell that could be broken, wouldn’t I dream? This is life without dreams,or dreams without memory. And without memory there is no need to form meaning. I don’t hold on. But I don’t need to hurt myself to feel pain- that I will never need a reminder of. I’d wish for something but I’d lost the capacity to know what to wish for. Maybe to be removed? But is there a me left to be removed, and if so, from what would I be removed from?

Beige Paint

Sometimes Lex wishes she had just killed herself back then, when she was screaming inside and her boyfriend watched her cry with a weary eye and aloof measure. Every decision meant so much in those days. Now she doesn’t care enough to die or to live. Stalemate. She wants to feel more but she avoids everything that might make her feel. She’s locked her self away in a compartment where she denies it freedom or devotion, the things that were denied her. She doesn’t feel the need to be loved anymore, why should she? She can’t imagine anybody ever seeing the beauty or the despair inside her. It’s been ran down.

left behind gone away to sleep not for lack of trying cliches raining down on her head why cant it be apples this time and why apples why can’t i work through my issues why pizza and why Alex and why anything why choose anything why can’t i just stay here not choosing denying myself life in a much more subtle way a punishment for what, i don’t know exactly, it does feel like some kind of punishment though but i dont even feel i have the power to punish myself, i feel powerless, but i never cared about power, i was a good girl, until good became bad, or overrated, but nobody beat me to bed if that’s what you’re asking, i maybe didn’t get heard enough but the poet says my place is like something out of a russian novel and why am i so afraid that i act like the strong one to even my weakest friends who arent judging of anything they arent in the place to be and i am so withheld i cant show them anything except daily loss and before when i tried it was a win i thought it had to do with concentration but now i see i cared i cared for things i dont seem to know when i am or am not in trouble i am just writing to try to fix something if anything can be fixed maybe i dont believe problems can be fixed they can only be entered and documented maybe i am so used to having things taken from me i am holding onto all material things junk or not and clutter or not and as for memories, i am holding on so tight to them i think my brain will blow…………… and i want to share all of this with whoever i feel is closest in my orbit, right now it’s clearly a guy I’ve dated and been friends with for ten years, but even him I can’t seem to let him see me emotionally nude.. but other people I’ve let, people who were judgmental, what do i have to lose with him, and i seem to be unable to relate to people around me, but people who are unreachable or who ended up being in there for their own gain maybe, or at least their motives were SO MURKY. i can accept that now and i seem to be able to grasp them or maybe it’s all circumstance i think im good at accepting the things i cannot change but i cant seem to accept the things i can change, im so used to everything being out of my reach, i dont know how to reach for anything anymore, and i feel ive lost even my tools of trade which had do with my self, and my self doesnt seem to have a place to exist without my art, and that’s sad maybe or is it not, but i used to feel if i was a waste than i needed to do the world a favor and off myself but then that changed somehow maybe because i sensed i shouldnt kill myself that it isnt something people do.. but then things stopped moving forward i stopped changing the things i needed to change and then guilt was packed on and the guilt overrides actual emotion and just became a blurry set of focals that are set to the wrong channel or prescription. The only thing I can do right is maybe understand other people but i have no degree in psychology so what good is that.

THAT side

(for them/in secret. secretly)

you miss them
only occasionally, sometimes
(BARELY AT ALL OKAY, LIKE ALMOST NEVER, I MEAN I COULD CARE LESS, I MEAN IM SO GLAD THEY ARE GONE GOOD RIDDDANCE!)

sometimes you’re surprised by what you can remember
you know, stuff you thought you lost- maybe even trashed- it turns up untouched
no bruising
and, and.. you want to go back. you wish you hadn’t been
THAT fierce or THAT antagonizing or THAT way…
or so damn prepared, because you should always enter a situation that rare unprepared-
because you are, you know. And all the things that you were you angrily look at/
only remembering that FEELING- you know, like you couldn’t get hurt?
you are so damn BLUNTED now; the sorrow has dried up, it stopped MOVING, instead of grateful/you’re bewildered…
You remember when you remembered EVERYTHING
when every memory was so fresh and freakishly tender
and precious and and… and there was no way to fall without breaks.

You saw that, you know.They saw that you saw that. A look was exchanged.
They didn’t seem, you know, SURPRISED enough for you. SORRY enough.
Now that so much time has passed, there is very little that you extract
but, like today, something came that you thought had gone.. a memory you thought was tucked too far was there,
like perfect weather

You wanna go back and change something…
a few things..
so they confided in you, whatever, and you thought this thing, this trust, went on forever…you thought it
could be tested and established, you didn’t account for weak bridges
they told you something, then they were mad that you ASK’D about it later!
As if it was YOUR FAULT that they told you personal things and then acted like you were IN their BUSINESS when you WERENT!!!instead of realizing what they did-
YOU BACKED OFF OR CURIOUSLY PRIED ACCORDING TO HIS AND YOUR MOODS
you didn’t
1) diplomatically see their problem or your reaction
2) notice how to deal in the “best” way with a “desirable” outcome
3) never thought aBOUT outcomes!!!! That was for THEM, they seem’d so BETTER at it, I TOLD THEM THAT!!!
(‘stop it’ they say
‘okay.’ i answer. ‘thanks’ i say, feeling something other people call relief.)
YOU WERE RELENTLESSLY GIDDY AND CHILDLIKE
going back in swings on their dime, on their insecurity
(they can handle it! and you’de do anything for them, y’know, when it really COUNTS…)
they counted ahead! they peeked! you showed them the discrepancies!

I’m so sorry…I want to be the other side of me.
I should have been the other side of me.
The side that’s trust is like mountain air or diamonds or eagle eyes.
The side that never, ever, breaks
not even under a torturers instrument.

When 12 you were told you just couldn’t be trusted..(“‘but I haven’t DONE anything- I’ve always tried to be my best mom! WHY mom! WHY”‘)
you KNEW they were wrong, You’de always been so OPEN, but it’s like you had to prove that if necessary
you COULD be unsavory, you could hurt if you had to. to PROVE IT.

you’ve barricaded yourself inside to get away from the knocking and the barging and
the gunshots,
like a hostage,
but it’s not the escape you went looking for!
The side that lives and breathes now
The side that lives and BREATHES now

You want/to go/back/…but only for a moment
And anyway, wouldn’t you feel like LEAVING if you went there?
you never learned any other way to live except
as a runaway- (even a stowaway would do better, you think!)
but unlike before, you can’t FLASH BAM disappear enough.
there’s not another elsewhere to go to.
they’re all gone. no more left. you’ve been to them ALL.
you didn’t perfect the disappearing act!
there’s no romance left in you.
a house without even a ghost to haunt it.
You wished you could get out,
you tried you could, you stormed out you could, you could you should,
but now that you aren’t trying to catch your breath,
you don’t know what to try and catch,
where to go from now,
so desensitized from all the scenery,
oNCE you no longer have that horrible place to run FROM that you compare everything to
what- “then?” you just lower your standards, so you don’t have to deal. So much slips away.
you want to go back… but not too far. Not back to the place you ran from.Just enough/
To where/it COUNTED./it all COUNTED. not too long ago,
in a far away place,
where happy endings were encased
in the hope of the unknown… of all that hadn’t been tasted..
the imagination was so much better back then.
You don’t ask what happened anymore… you know better

or maybe, you know WORSE

THAT side

(for them/in secret. secretly)

i miss them
only occasionally, sometimes
(BARELY AT ALL OKAY, LIKE ALMOST NEVER, I MEAN I COULD CARE LESS, I MEAN IM SO GLAD THEY ARE GONE GOOD RIDDDANCE!)

sometimes i’m surprised by what i can remember
you know, stuff i thought i’d lost- maybe even trashed- it turns up untouched
no bruising
and, and.. i want to go back. i wish that i hadnt been
THAT fierce or THAT antagonizing or THAT way…
or so damn prepared, because you should always enter a situation that rare unprepared-
because you are, you know. And things I were I angrily look at/
only remembering that FEELING- you know, like I couldn’t get hurt?

I’m so damn BLUNTED now, the sorrow has dried up, it stopped MOVING, instead of grateful/i’m bewildered…/
I remember when I remembered EVERYTHING
when every memory was so fresh and freakishly tender
and precious and and… and there was no way to fall without breaks.
I saw that, you know.They saw that I saw that. A look was exchanged.
They didn’t seem, you know, SURPRISED enough for me. SORRY enough.

Now that so much time has passed, there is very little that I extract
but, like today, something came that i thought had gone.. a memory i thought was
tucked too far was there,
like perfect weather

I wanna go back and change something…
a few things..

so they confided in me, whatever, and I thought this thing, this trust, went on forever…I thought it
could be tested and established, i didn’t account for weak bridges
they told me something, then they were mad that i ASK’D about it later!
As if it was MY FAULT that they told me personal things and then acted like i was IN
their BUSINESS when i WASNT!!!
instead of realizing what they did-
I BACKED OFF OR CURIOUSLY PRIED ACCORDING TO OUR MOODS
i didn’t
1) diplomatically see their problem or my reaction
2) notice how to deal in the “best” way with a “desirable” outcome
3) never thought aBOUT outcomes!!!! That was for THEM, they seem’d so BETTER at it, I TOLD THEM THAT!!!
(‘stop it delater’ they say
‘okay.’ i answer. ‘thanks’ i say, feeling something other people call relief.)
I WAS RELENTLESSLY GIDDY AND CHILDLIKE
going back in swings on their dime, on their insecurity
(they can handle it! and i’d do anything for them, y’know, when it really COUNTS…)
they counted ahead! they peeked! i showed them!
I’m so sorry…I want to be the other side of me.
I should have been the other side of me.
The side thats trust is like mountain air or diamonds or eagle eyes.
The side that never, ever, breaks
not even under a torturers instrument.

When 12  I was told I couldn’t be trusted..(“‘but I haven’t DONE anything- I’ve always tried to be my best mom! WHY mom! WHY”‘)
I knew they were wrong, I’d always been so OPEN, but it’s like I had to prove that if
necessary
I COULD be unsavory, I could hurt if I had to. to PROVE IT.

I’ve barricaded myself inside to get away from the knocking and the barging and
the gunshots,
like a hostage,
but it’s not the escape I was looking for!
The side that lives and breathes now
The side that lives and BREATHES now

I want/to go/back/…but only for a moment
And anyway, wouldn’t I feel like LEAVING if I went there?
oNCE you no longer have that horrible place to run FROM that you compare everything
to
you never learned how to stop living like a runaway-
but unlike before, you can’t FLASH BAM disappear enough.
you can’t disappear enough.
You wished you could,
you tried you could, you stormed out you could, you could you should,
but now that you aren’t trying to catch your breath,
you don’t know what to try and catch,
where to go from now,
so desensitized from all the scenery,
you want to go back… but not too far. Not back to the place you ran from.Just enough/
To where/it COUNTED./it all COUNTED. not too long ago,
in a far away place,
where happy endings were encased
in the hope of the unknown… of all that hadn’t been tasted..
the imagination was so much better back then.

You don’t ask what happened anymore… you know better

or maybe, you know WORSE

sephora and andy

the benign neglect wasn’t sticking. andy wasn’t budging. sephora was annoyed that she might actually have to outright insult the guy to get him to stop being a boyfriend. no matter what she did, he stuck with the nice guy persona. he said they could go slower, just hang out and watch a movie in the afternoon since he’d just lost his job. she finally wrote back a response about how it was nice that he contacted her, and she would write back later. she would let him assume there was something tragic going on in her life, something she had to appear for. as if her life was some constant drama and he got to be there on the offstage parts, when she had her real life. that was what he wanted to think. in reality, he was just another aspect for her to try and escape from.

sephora couldn’t escape into andy, so she needed to escape from  him.  she remembered sharing things with andy, but they didn’t become close, and every time she saw two people having a real conversation, she reminded herself that andy couldn’t do that. the last time he had sex with her she felt like she couldn’t breathe. he kept at it for so long she wondered how dare he ask for it again in the morning. and he wouldn’t leave! he insisted on sleeping over there even when she was clearly uncomfortable. he obviously thought that since he had been allowed to sleep there before, he had crossed some line, some precedent that nobody else crossed. he was just too green around the gills. he went out to binge drink at night. he was never without his group of friends. when his birthday came only two people showed up. he wasn’t the leader in the group. in his letter he said something about how all his friends told him to tell her how important she was in his life. this made her want to gag; she skimmed through the rest as quickly as possible.

Submerged in the subliminal not being ENOUGH

A flash. A body in a plastic bag flapping. Too much light. The torrents of heat prevent me from returning to the long-gone jumbled up images making up an unaccountable plot line. Only a flavor is as much as I retain. Maybe years have gone by and I haven’t been able to detect the passing of time. The only thing real was in a corrosive plastic bag, and I couldn’t recognize it’s NAME, whether it was male or female, whether it had a life, a job, a child. Figures shouldn’t have access to these things, but they already access my subconscious! I know my nightlife has turned into a wave of LOUD, APPRAISING, images I leave.

Goose-bumps pile up against the skin, defense or attack? then they go, no trace behind, no knowing they were ever there.

I scroll anxiously through yesterday’s texts, looking for a place of reference. See the lame attempts to have a conversation with E,  Is he another hole in my life I can’t fix? (People think he has a bad temper. The ex-Ms. E believes he’ll project all his unhappiness onto another before he’ll take responsibility. Responsibility, such a tough, rotten word. “I have more common sense in my pinky finger than all your friends combined;” Damn if he was right- is it his CHARM~) Now his deafening SILENCE, it’s saying how much he cares– and his caring is TOO MUCH PRESSURE!! If he didn’t care, wouldn’t he be okay with being friends, not feel obliged to SUMMON up the past by REPRESSING so much? I guess I’m new at things of this kind- See; Yesterday I didn’t care what I wrote, today I am kinda curious what I wrote. I see a wink- from ME?- no no,  I don’t like that- it’s not BROODING! I must have been feeling carefree to add a fucking EMOTICON.  He won that round, he responded the least. DING! It’s 41-5. Not that anybody keeps tally. And I think I deserve points for noticing he plays, for seeing how important it is to him that he wins. It’s not as important to me that I win.. As always, I enjoy the artfulness of a game. (Not. The. Diplomacy. There is none.. Winners like dat! they play dirty, are willing to count any win as a gain, no matter how DISTASTEFUL! I remember when I used to LET him win…  I’d forgo countless times… it became a pattern of sorts.. What woulda happened had I played HARDBALL?!)

I CAN HOLD ANYBODY ACCOUNTABLE! He let me blame him.. he had me as victim.. But never felt I such a VICTIM as when he didn’t fight for me to stay! He wants it to be the victims fault.. it would resolve his issues. It would, it so would! wouldsoo, but he feels he needs take responsibility too. Dodging or Taking the RAP his OWN WAY! You see why I wanted to throw away ALL wins..? Forget it-

Then- chubby chinned, baby faced, full of PREP SCHOOL LIES that posed as KNOWLEDGE, the one who tried to help was DENIED, whom/ I’ve been avoiding/so hard it’s not like/ a game- he can’t get to me, I’ve locked myself away… poisoned by his tawdry, adolescent words! even my other GUY friends cringe at his usage/his attempts. It’s been this way for a while.. I just didn’t want to TELL him. I’m not being very cool. If, if he free-falls.. maybe he’ll understand who I am, what I was, see it all in backwards motion later on. I see a text from the friend that loves the guy I am trying to FLEE- he says “hasn’t this guy always treated you as well as he knew HOW?” Another lame attempt at trying to change my mind, shift the blame back to me AGAIN, I DONT LIKE BLAME!!! to sway me back again into giving second-rate something a chance. I just don’t FEEL it. If I FELT it. Don’t you understand it’s FRAUDULENT to keep going if you don’t feel it? Maybe it’s very normal for all of you, and maybe it’s something you do. Clearly this has to do with you and not me, at the same time you can’t leave it alone, and it’s lethal.

When I try to keep us at arms length, I feel guilt. When I let you in, you won’t stop! What is this senseless thing? Like a dance, you really step on my toes, I am so sorry I want another dance partner, is it such a horrible thing to want? to want at all- I hate my own avoidance behavior.(do I really…?)

I didn’t want to be ICE. I didn’t want to be COLD. didn’t want to be like so many have been.. But is that being horrible just the same, there’s no difference for it, I should have just torn it off in one shriek, let him think of me as terrible, but I wanted that BACK DOOR open…and I thought I was always open!

I thought maybe the two of us, we could TALK it out… I left/ “it”/ there/ambiguous. But- POKED and NUDGED into OFFENSE, I couldn’t stand the distaste, their presence/ too nearby- the sour stench of  bad breath. the way poor sweetness got PROLONGED and TRICKED into following a bitter wretchedness! WHY the ASPIRATION for me to TASTE resentment? I saw it, that mighta PREVENTED the need for open windows- the way a window can long to be JUMPED out of- what’s with that? Isn’t that the end right there? Or is that something I did?

(More like all I didn’t do-a set of ANTI-behaviors invisibly tattooed on me-)

I don’t care anymore, this isn’t a confession hall. You were nice, it ends there…

(Except for maybe not?) Maybe I should let you know I see an ending where you don’t. I don’t like it very much. I could just say I think we should be FRIENDS for a while but adding HOPE to the mix can be pure conjecture… or is it spite! No

These emotions make up cocktails, and I can analyze them SO RIGHT, but when it comes to MAKING these potions, I just don’t show the thoughtful amount of SPICE… I don’t have the homemade touch. I’m told it makes all the difference. It’s very NON-FEMININE of me… It’s very MYSTERIOUSLY unlikeable… Like my beautiful complicated Mercury, the feline, too loving for her own good, like her acting like a porcupine.  She does that someTIMES…

Now! I try to remember the flavor.. of THAT DREAM.. the one with only one retained image? There might be a street… but now the SENSE of it,  (or the SENSELESSNESS of it-) that’s gone too.. I will never know what it meant… I will not know what I was trying to tell myself… I object. On the other hand, if my subconscious tried any harder, I’d be having seizures..

not that those are easy to remember, either.

“Part of me hates him.. part of me just wants to be with him and make everything better… BUT I CANT EVEN START the conversation if I keep getting his answering machine!”

“I know, Cathy.. Unrequited love.”

“Even WORSE. Unrequited ambivalence.” -C. G.

December, 2009, Unrecognizable

I walked there with my head down, letting my feet take over. I’d woken up in a mood. You must understand- noticing any mood at all was a change of pace for me. Even if later I wasn’t able to differentiate what mood it was- whether I’d felt relief, or clarity, or just a subtle awareness of my surroundings, I knew it was a change from the billows of gray clouds that served as one giant mental handcuff for my thoughts. Once I reached my destination, I noticed huddles of disgruntled beggars in front of Rite Aid. People sitting on the steps engaged in complaints about their broken lives. I said excuse me, but nobody noticed. I had to step around to get by. I walked carefully, as if I weren’t so focused on letting the sting of cold air burn my cheeks rather than wonder why I felt so hurt all the time. But it wasn’t as if I was paying any mortgages anytime soon and I lived in this head. Even when I wanted out. Escapism wasn’t working so well, you see.

I guess I didn’t understand how fully I believed in them. Even though their words may have been spoken with ardent resolve, each time the affairs surrounding the proceedings were taken as an excuse for breaking the word. I wasn’t perfect. Maybe it was time to turn the telescope back onto me. But my hands were trembling too badly to hold the equipment in place.

It started in my head. Most things do. My head swarmed with knots. Dread overtook the simplest actions. Every time I fought to forget anything they had ever said to me, I failed. The gigantic leap between where they said they’d d be and where they were now was implanted. The huge gap was making my ability to go forwards- my philosophy: one foot in front of the other, perpetual forward motion and lateral thinking- difficult. I imagine that certain drugs eat holes in your brain. Now I had one in my heart, where I couldn’t go or see. People always had to tell me what I felt. Instead of that turning up on my telescope, it was like a green dot. Radiation, it said.

So maybe the heart thing was a shadow, or maybe just a little inflamed tissue. Surely nothing to be afraid about. But just in case, I blocked everything up so nothing could get out.

No more leaks.

But the music in my head kept going even though I’d put a stop to music. I’d broken the metronome and put the lid to the piano down. I’d thrown my scores into a vaporizer and waited with my hand on the detonator.

For no matter how many times I’d forgiven, I now lived with a new kind of hesitancy that took over my movements. I no longer walked in a stride. So afraid of the next time the discord would strike. All because I had no weapons against it. This from a person who hated the usage of weapons, desperate to find someone more desperate than me who had survived without weapons. Their bare fists. Their bare everything.

The stakes had changed. What was there to lose? I had nothing to lose, except the smell of burnt matter.

I tried. To turn the music in my head backwards was like a screeching sound, drilling railroad tracks. I thought I knew how to escape pain. I thought I was strong. But I’d run out of chances. There was no escape from something that repeated so many times. My faith was my only weapon but it kept hurting me. I kept believing that this time they wouldn’t lie, as they did so many times, because there once was a time when they did not squeeze everything they touched. I kept trying to pry the tension from their grip, “Stop trying to force me, I don’t like how it feels,” they told me.

I didn’t like being pushed away. They didn’t like being pulled. We both had bloody knees.

“Pray to God on it,” the lady with olive skin and profuse, accepting eyes told me. She held my hand and kissed me. “The people who blow up buildings say God told them to do it,” I told her. I had a feeling I’d interpret my hearts wishes as what I wanted me to do when there was no way I could know what the right thing to do was.

It was not useful to go places where I could not trust myself. That was everywhere. The shadows.

Stirs VERSION TWO

There is so much information and stuff, spikes in learning, and I just want to dump it all on their lap but they don’t understand, they can’t understand, for surveillance makes out their limitations clearly. Their inexperience is systemic. Their stride is too clumsy. Inept but well-meaning. The sloppiness poses difficulties. Maybe it’s simple chemistry. Unsettled, it’s a situation to go along with for now. Already wondering about how to extract without shattering… if only. If only they were more talented…

Some people can take a violin and make it sound like a child laughing, a puppy whining, an unnameable melody from childhood. But this one. They pick up the violin.

It sounds like a violin. Proficient, I suppose.

I don’t know if I can live with proficient

not with what i felt THEN sharing now.

To put it in the music and the words is the must behind all the need. This is what it always comes down to: alone with a tornado of words, the incessant children songs about not smiling.Sonatas are beggars on corners. Lyrics are women behind concrete cells, scraping the floor to get escape. Wanting to shut the music box down, but there is a key, only a few of the melodies can tell you where the key leads. They can’t pretend to understand.

I don’t mind being alone. It’s the memories. Once, they were well-intentioned.

The only one who shared my agony and ecstasy, the only one who can speak to me of them now. It’s harder being alone knowing how the one who crossed boundaries, could crack open translations, doors, and safes, is also the problem.

They aren’t here today but I can’t chalk them up as a loss, either.

Today. I learned how desperate people will be when faced with what they need, not what they want..The worst of lies beCAUSE they were so ashamed of their needs..

It’s a common problem. Almost laughable how not unique their problem! How big a deal they make over it! Makes them the problem. Never A problem (problems can be solved) but The Problem.

Talk about hogging center stage…

The novel is stirring inside me. I see the answers to make the character real.

The  place where i can write it.

Looking back.. Will I risk looking back..

They can’t rock me as I confide in them about the distance between the two. (what is unembracable and embraceable too? How they notify me that they are here but not here for me? Their hello-don’t-call-this-a-real-hello.) The way going down hurts like going up feels like throwing up gets. They would be polite enough. But how outlandish the scene. “Huh. Want to play the violin now? I can make it sound like a violin!”

I don’t want to hear a violin sound like a fucking violin! I want it to sound like anything but a violin!

And you, the nice one, you would let me hate you for decency!

I can’t say that I don’t think about what could have been, especially when the questions are answered. The answers are very, very shaky.

They reflect sickness.

It’s not me that it troubles. Not my world they cast into doubt. I left them room for their lies. Did they notice? No, they probably didn’t. Because for all the space, my inborn curiosity was a natural interrogation room, as well as a comfort zone for them. I guess it depended on whether they wanted to share or hide. I let them do both, but they wouldn’t believe. That leap of faith- some people aren’t capable of it?

Is that what you dared to tell me with your instant microwaves, your inbred cousins, your moldy bread, your online everything, the google jobs, the amazon jobs, the interviews, the construction sites, the hahaha’s after every sentence that held something important, the formality, the speed of a ghost is what?

I hate it when I must ask you to repeat yourself. I didn’t hear you the first time. And you won’t tell me a second?!

I don’t feel like my world view has been toppled. Nothing nearly that dramatic, though most others here would react that way. They’d feel betrayed. An extreme reaction. So normal here. But my reaction is nothing more than a sigh.

The worst was confirmed. I played with a box of answers, it leads to more questions, well, just one, the same question actually, was it Pandora’s?

lol… that wasn’t REALLY my question!

Is it true I no longer want them? They eventually took the desire for granted until it, too, was lost in the mail…

I miss the passion. I doubt there will be passion like it again. I tried to recreate it.

Is return possible? I too can sabotage things.

I want what I had with them preserved. On some level there is still love and understanding, but they hate anybody who loves them. They derive satisfaction from seeing other people proved wrong.