Thank you for that joint,
you left in my ash tray
last time we fucked
Thank you for caring two days later,
about how drunk I was on saturday
when they had to put me in a cab home,
caus I kept screaming your name
Thank god,
I got my period today,
two weeks late.
I’m deleting your phone number now,
this poem in a few days
and the thoughts of you forever.
i want to be outside of our home, and you are cleaning the walkway near our garden with a hose, and i look at you with the sun up above, and i run up to you and jump you, wrapping my legs around your torso, and we are laughing, and we kiss.
i want to be in the tub with you, and you wash my hair, and kiss my neck, making me smile. i wash your hair too.
i want to be working all day, and on one of my errands the phone rings and its you, and you call just to say you love me. you even sing me the song.
when i cry, you kiss my tears.
when i am happy i kiss your cheeks.
when we have writers block we kiss each others’ finger tips.
i want us to have a boat, and in this boat we lay, and the sea rocks us gently, and the sun kisses our skin, and i smile at you, and you smile at me.
i want us to fuck so hard that i lose myself rubbing up onto you, as you ebb deeper and deeper into me, and we scream and yell and kick and punch and bite and lick and fuckkkkkkkkkkkk yeahhhhhhhhhh.
This one is for Dom and Julie,
Thank you for always picking up the left over pieces of me.
When I drink too much, and loose all rationality.
And It Came to Pass
by C.D. Wright
This june 3
would be different
Time to draw lines
I’ve grown into the family pores
and the bronchitis
Even up east
I get by saying goddamnit
Who was that masked man
I left for dead
in the shadow of mt. shadow
Who crumbles there
Not touching anything
but satin and dandelions
Not laid his eyes
on the likes of you
Because the unconnected life
is not worth living
Thorntrees overtake the spot
Hands appear to push back pain
Because no poet’s death
Can be the sole author
of another poet’s life
What will my new instrument be
Just this water glass
this untunable spoon
Something else is out there
goddamnit
And I want to hear it
i am nearly a zombie.
i paced around my day to lose myself in my own footprints.
i put my hand on the wall. you were not there. you are not the wall.
i am going through this, but i have a tremor near my left knee, and it is telling me that all is not lost. but how to fix you?
i see a man with eyebrows. i know he is not you, but my heart flutters nonetheless. i grab at the knife on the table and plunge it deep into my heart. i can hear the blood burble out, first slowly, then faster, flowing down my body, dripping onto my shoes. i twist the blade, feeling it slice into the cartilage, feeling the pieces of myself slowly tear apart. my nose is searing with pain. my blood is everywhere. it is coming out of the edges of my lips, all this blood, how am i still standing?
how am i still standing without you.
As we plunge deeper towards the bottom of the reef, I am but the shadows of those around me. The water’s darkness becoming a haunting presence, I surrender to. I stretch out, spinning slowly. The air is thick and coated within my ears, my eyes adjust to the sudden streaks of light, vanishing. I follow them, those who guide me, and forget our destination. My scales expand and open, softly, while I dive deeper. I open my mouth swallowing particles, abruptly finding myself pulled back.
We suddenly collide, all of us, wrapped in string. We are jerked back; the light becomes more present as the pressure releases us within the air. I am conscious, and weightless.
We are pressed on each other, still wet. Our bodies are rammed into each other as I try to fight myself out. I am no longer spinning; my tail flaps my head onto another’s.
We are trapped; we are dying. Suddenly the net that held us tightly is opened, unfamiliar creatures are screaming while their faces crease in peculiar places.
I forget where we are, again. The air fills up my lungs; I am unable to release it. There is no water; there is no more hope. We face the outcome of our existence together, forgetting what is happening at intervals of a few seconds. Suddenly we are filled with anticipation, only to realize the proximity of our end, once again.
Running out of breath, I rest my eyes as my body weakens. I fall asleep, lying. Something I have never done before. The open air is cold and abundant. However for the last time, below the others and above some more, I feel warmth
(NB:THIS IS FICTIONS, SOME THINGS HAVE BEEN EXAGGERATED OR CHANGED FOR THE SAKE OF THE STORY)
That I was the one Rosalie chose to confide in, made perfect sense. She asked me if Caitlin had ever told me she liked me, if she had ever deceived me. I said, yes. After telling her about the three days, the Dilaudids and the boxed wine in my parent’s basement, Rosalie started telling me about the way she opened up their relationship. A relationship, she obviously would have preferred shut. She tried to please Caitlin, who preferred to open up things. Leaving them undone, dissecting and playing with them, while remaining easily bored. Rosalie admitted details about them, together. Details that I too curious to ignore. Details, that I would have rather not known.
Last summer, Caitlin had taken a part of me with her. A part of me that leaves me slightly colder now, restless, facing relationships in the same way one touches one’s own feet to make sure they are still there, or pinches ones owns fingers to keep them from turning blue. It is hard to understand and explain why I continuously return to that relationship, a relationship that was always open, that lasted barely a month, or two. Perhaps it is because through her, I saw myself in a way I had never seen myself before. Perhaps it is because she had a vision of her own freedom that enhanced a part of me; or simply perhaps, it is because even in at its end, the relationship felt open.
I met Caitlin in a bar, expecting nothing. A few days later, I brought her to my friend’s empty loft to take pictures. I had no intentions, but to appreciate her beauty. A Beauty that emanated beyond her looks, to her way of seeing through those of others. With her, I could not pull off an act, nor could I try to divert her attention from who I was. She constantly questioned her own intentions, therefore questioning mine. The relationship without expectations quickly made me weak, weak for her. Whether I thought she loved the chase more than she could appreciate me was irrelevant; as long as we were alone there was no boundaries. I acknowledged my weaknesses as confirming my strengths; in the very way ugliness defines beauty.
Unlike for Rosalie, Caitlin had not been the first woman to enter my life, in that way. She was quiet, but not feminine. Still her features were soft, and in the sun, the freckles underlining her cheekbones, would come to life. Since her preference for girls was made somewhat obvious through her appearances, our relationship unwillingly suggested a statement on my sexual identity. At that point, I doubted my capacities of loving men. My surroundings responded by attempting to define me, facing this newly exposed facet. However with her, there was no question of gender, and just as others did not easily take her in, she was not easily lost within them.
I must believe that the moments we spent alone were powerful for her, as much as they were for me. Once, in my room, she leaned above me while I lit candles. She undressed me beyond my clothes, and let me explore her. She grazed my skin, in the same way one explores oneself for the first time, breathing through me and letting me catch my breath through hers. We often spent stoned nights in my bedroom, not even bothering to step out for fresh air. We would face each other, and bathe within one another’s presence. The essence of the drug aligned our visions; we grasped more than we were capable of understanding. Absorbing the best of her, all judgments remained mute. We gained an understanding of each other beyond ourselves, foreseeing our capacities to achieve greater things. It became unnecessary to define myself through my weaknesses, to surrender to my loss of faith.
At the core of our relationship, laid a firm belief in the importance of energies. We continuously tried to tame our connections with each other, as well as with our surroundings. We knew the love we gave out to others would find a way back to us, even if we were unaware of where to seek it. As we felt ourselves quietly interlocking, we acknowledged that there was a reason for everything. Smitten, I decided to send her three letters explaining the debt of my feelings towards her. The same day, I went to meet her, only to face the end of a relationship I could not picture myself without. For three days, I refused to feel. A couple of weeks later, Caitlin started dating Rosalie. By that time I was frozen and preferred surrounding myself solely with men. I changed apartments, left to New York, came back with only vague memories of what our relationship had once been. Just as her presence erased all the relationships that had built me previously, she had vanished. My identity returned to what it was before, slowly fitting back into place.
When Rosalie came to me, I was at the end of another relationship, in which I had lost myself, in which I had forgotten about the core of my beliefs. I had let my loss of faith lead me into a failed relationship, in which I was only defined by the worst of me. Talking to Rosalie made me realize the extent to which I had surrendered to my faults.
The extent to which, trying to regain power over myself, I had lost the essence of what I could become. When Rosalie was grateful for my presence, helping her overcome her loss, I too found myself grateful. Grateful for remembering a relationship, that had been erased. Grateful for realizing the potential we all had to regain control over ourselves.
Caitlin is not aware of the extent to which I owe her this deeper understanding of myself, a deeper understanding of others, and I thank her. The regretful way things ended did not have to define what we were.
The day she disappeared, the sun was already vanishing half way through the afternoon. We went for a walk, turned right and right again until she told me she would prefer us to remain friends. I haven’t walked there since, as if the damp smell of frost and the shadow of her short silhouette would reappear. Her voice, drowned in truth. The images of her disinterest are now clear. What remains of us is not a story of love, but rather the lack of it.
It is not what it is,
if anything it is what it is not.
It is complicated, intricate, twisted.
Just knowing you are on the other end of that phone
It is not simple,
nor is it obvious,
nor is it resolved.
I do not believe in ends, only the unavoidable one.
I do not believe in beginnings, only births.
Besides the baby food I left in your fridge,
is there anything more you have retained from me?
Please, do not speak of regrets.
Picture; Erik Faulkner, Laurence Fournier, Emanuel Botello
