you'll see
she says
no one will see that.
he said,
that i was shaving.
it means your worrying--
in anticipation.
it wasn't rough,
he said,
just a normal shave.
is that normal?
i guess,
he said.
it lasted all night.
weird.
yeah,
totally weird.
she told me that her dog died
after christmas break.
and for a second i believed that she was joking
god, i said, please tell me that's a metaphor
for something
nope. she said. it's not.
time loses texture. renders me monochrome and jacketless. thoughts of you. like wording the endless screw. particles of broken back beats. and fists full of midnight otis redding. scotch.
at the other end of the couch. he sits. spitting blood into a clear glass.
i'd humor about how much of my life exists mostly in stretches of moments between someone. bleeding. if it didn't feel somehow easier to crush my skull into concrete. loneliness sounds like chewing glass. and the world won't go the right way round again. all the sunlight's dropped like cherry blossoms in late fall. stuck to the rubber sides of shoes. and i want to scream and scream nonsense until my insides break and go. let loose their choke holds to trade up on pollack for mondrian. i want to be sound that breaks and goes. waves you like eels spent for water. this time, we all wait for the slow drip of the drain to stop. so he can go to bed. ruin the sheets. and i can trace out our life on the godforsaken wall-to-wall carpeting. these human stains.
fast posting, part two
just had one of those moments. where i was standing in the same spot killing time before something starts that i was standing in waiting for something else to start 5 long years ago. except this time, i'm on the very end of things instead of the beginning. and the computers in the student lounge, where i haven't been since that first time are much better. faster. sleeker. and at desks with chairs. i wonder about the weather in the east. and if i'll ever get enough sleep. i'm thinking about taking myself off my medication and giving up food, again. my mind feels like recordable wax. every time i go to write my dedication and acknowledgments pages i start crying my eyes out. this isn't going to be easy, for either of us, she says. but i hope we're going to be alright. yeah, he says. and they rock heads and touch palms. holy lies we all tell ourselves to sleep better at night. only they don't sleep. she lies awake and counts paper birds. flying. dreams of morning grass in fall. the heat of the kitchen. the way her voice falls dumb and trembling when she cries. in the shower.
i just found out this past weekend that, before then, my boyfriend had never had a Snake Bite.
poor thing.
lately, on friday mornings, it's been difficult to decide whether to make a coffee or a stiff drink.
like holidays and everything else, it's just some arbitrary moment in my life where things will change again. that will mark a moment. not the huge change that will come. later on. but a good one. a sign one. better than trying hot dogs from a can for the first time. less significant than saving a life.
two weeks, until. i slow down a little. hopefully.
because i can't seem to write what i've been trying to write (because i didn't sleep at all last night) --
things that have happened in the past 5 years:
1. got divorced
2. fell in love over the internet
3. moved
4. went to the UK, twice
5. thought i was going to get married again, then realized i wasn't
6. foster father died
7. got increasingly sick(er) and diagnosed with disease/disorder for which there is no cure
8. tried to cure broken heart by getting into terrible destructive relationship (got more broken heart and did things i'd been wrongly accused for/about in the break-ups of other relationships)
9. best friend died
10. met new partner, who, after spending a week together, promptly quit his job and moved 1,500 miles and into my apartment
oh, yeah, aside from the whole nearly-complete graduate program/dissertation/job search.
i need an effing break.
