I always think, when he leaves, that I'll get more work done. But mostly I end up standing at the window staring down at the space his car left. Waiting for him to return. To the sounds of the wind howling like the cry of hungry animals at night.
today, i bought new trainers. shed the old cracked skins. eight pavement years soaked and read into shin bones and knee caps. vibrate the spanse of spine like cars shake on roads when they're shook. and the radio beats songs like raindrops on windscreens. the tap and the tap and the drip. the just irregular right. rhythm. and then somehow new rubber makes souls faster than they thought they could. braver, still. no blue dreams. no capes for flying away.
he curls me up in his lap like kittens. months sing themselves away into my back as if moments were the whispers i wake up with, some mornings, still caught and floating around in my twisted hair. his tongue shifts, says stay alive. his breath warms the broken memories on my skin. draws van Gogh's clouds around my collar bones.
i forget the way words go. count in my head. back. monkeys. two three four. popular routes to get to the concrete sin of the way headlights flash at night. in rain. ice cubes. slide.
break.
letter,
the gps stopped working. new batteries. a click and tap on the top of the desk where it's flat and the damage wouldn't be too severe. to route. took off the plastic back cover and poked electronic panels. unnavigable. to map. the satellite still doesn't speak. and we wander through the neighborhoods with the dumb thing in our hands. we know the way. but we're waiting for it to tell us where to go.
stupid.
i don't know what it is sometimes. the dust that gets caught on the edges of my fingertips. decreases the sound and sense between words flashing around inside through the dull click of the keys on my less audible keyboard. sometimes there only just is silence and the invisible gnawing. like the tingling sensation of starvation along the edge of lowest edge. tricked under the ribs like all those things you keep trying to forget out. skinned knees and the aftermath of wet hot nights in june.
Colin,
Can you stop leaving the bathroom light on when you leave for work in the morning? I swear it turns the house into wet paint on a slick summer afternoon.
Thanks,
Imo
P.S. We're almost out of soy milk.
xx xx o.
I meant to title this post 'plastered.' Because I'm no longer getting drunk most mid days until midnights roaring around my lived spaced like a caged animal longing for attention. I am no longer put up or shut up. I don't bleed toxins or need the feel of ashamed. I refuse to play foolish again. I've cried useless and dry more than enough. Screamed enough. Streamed soundless words like trying at this razor's edge more than enough. If I am vacuous or daft. If my words or my lack of words leave you stagnant. If I am pleased to disappoint. Then let me be. I am one girl. One moment of blood with broken skin and bones and sinews searching the landscape of bodies for oxygen. And I don't need any more favors. There's no road home. No way to write down the steps like baking a cake to the doorstep of anywhere that I belong. No poet instructions to break and go like the false orange of hard candies. So, don't bother to call or write. Don't stop by my flat or work to remind me that I am one useless excuse for a human being. The world suddenly slipped like rugs under feet. The space of a hand gone centuries blinked. I am yours always. Never.
