i decide to stop being me
and start being you
i'm easier
i think
and much more tangible
in pretend
i'm not really sure if it bothers me that i make you crazy. this girl today i'm wearing one shoe on and one shoe off. under my desk at work knows a whole lot about madness. some of it she learned from you. if i count to ten now. i only have five toes free. that leaves two hands to choose from. the left. the left the left. backwards ten feels less offensive to the now. the pull and space continued roam of straight black dials chasing themselves and us around faces. dragging you endless and kicking. further and further away. from me. if i put my other shoe back on. something about then.
sits outside the building where i work. he waits. we're not friends. you and me. i think. click my phone. open. closed. open. tuck the clicked end under my nose. stare. pace the story of every norwegian folktale i've ever read to try to get to the part where the loser child becomes the hero and rules the kingdom if he's living still. but the dog turns me into the maiden locked in the floating castle instead. forced to marry the monster. and i have to look away. first. your smile makes me feel minimized. down the path from the building where i work there's a trash can that says: this is killing me. when i try to look at you. let you in. when i do. now. i think i might know exactly what it means.
i bought an orange hardback notebook
it cost 3 pound 50
and is the first blank book i've ever had
that i've chosen
for myself
when i wear black motorcycle boots with sun dresses
men follow me closely strange through public places
today, the version of Office on my work computer was upgraded. i hate the new version of Word with a passion i thought was reserved only for ex-boyfriends and spider bites. I am forced to work in this version of Word now, because i have a huge deadline. i am completely and utterly beside myself. and think i might have to walk to the shops for cigarettes or potato crisps. or both.
the length of the foot. the space from the foot of the bed to the switch. your disproportionate match to my lips. everything's predictable. measured. measurable. i log numbers and time tables and calories burned into columns with formulas and goal points until artificial meaning bleeds me like caught fish on newsprint. i know the alphabet. and that combinations of letters make words into guttural ticks out of mouths that make meaning into ears and heads and tongues. and that bodies sometimes soak sounds like scars. butterflied. unforgivable. i know that people always leave. and that love isn't about much more than stupid choices. and that lately i might just be too overwhelmed by the world to know what to do with you, either.
today, i'd like to get sun-shine lazy fall down asphalt drunk and spin words like memories for spite. i'd like to stalk the dark lonely corners of the garage with a half-bottle of gin, a full packet of matches, and howl myself wild and animal. today, i'd like to hide from the reality of meaning and the consequence of inevitable things like gravity. and forgiveness. find the spot and start the spin to stop.
but, then again, i won't.
asia dreams of killing fields. and loneliness. of being alone. and human. she probably thinks. aren't we all just one small step away from being. slides the thought. the texture of the words. like whiskey unforgiving and not-long-forgotten. on the tongue. the throat. in the space of the things that bend. like knees. and the aftermath of slow nighttime mouths on ears and all those other bed-stained maps. the places. that are left unseen. obscure. obscene. these dark day moments when she stalks the long gone midnight waking streets of some dis-remembered voice. of you. asia really knows that she's always been a monster. and that she isn't a monster. anymore.
notes: for how i know someday we'll be friends in a charity shop
today was your birthday. it's no news i forgot it. didn't send you anything special like your over-spoiled first child sister. no. i completely forgot that on this day of a few years before you were a new new thing in the world. a special thing. one of my favorite things in the entire universe. and i didn't send you. one. single thing. not a coo. not a call. not a hand stained paper print. or a thoughtless random book from amazon. nothing.
it's not that anyone loves you less. unthinking. i. realize there are valuable lessons to be learned too late about being the second child. that will make you understand the world far better than the lack of seeing yourself in photo books and family stories. or the limits of my arms. and a shiny new visa card.
