What Now?

I skip forward in time without realizing it. I find a day or two has gone by only because I see myself in different clothes when I look in the mirror.

I have learned to sleep many more hours a day but cannot yet figure out how to stop dreaming.

I'm bad at this.

"Happiness" - Grant Lee Buffalo

This Isn't a Key

Before we met I said "never, no never again" but you built a fantasy out of a darkened cloakroom and a wide-open window. You held a key, but leaned against the door, whispered sweet wild things, your ear against the echoing wood. "I'm on the other side; is the key in your hand?"

You're not sure how to use it, why would you be? I flatten my hand against the door, so close if I lean in I can feel the warmth of your sweet face.

"Open the door, open the door."

I can't tell but I think you shook your head. I heard you whisper, "this isn't a key" before you walked away. I heard metal on the floor.

Late Night Notes

This doesn't work out? I'm moving away, under the sea.
Going to be a nanny to a school of clever fish.
I'd skip out to the stars,
write down their sputtering silences.
I'll dig and dig
until I can warm myself with the molten core of the earth.
This doesn't work
and I'm damned to start to lose myself
the wind will blow one day
and a little bit of me will be gone
the next, a little more
until I'm gone altogether.
I'll live in a tree house,
learn the language of growing green things,
never speak again so that any man can hear.
I'll billow and fly away like a sail, a kite
into a blue blank sky
and cover myself in clouds
and scream lightning and thunder.
I'll become transparent,
people will see through me
I'll moonlight as a double-paned glass door.
I think I'll be an apple
my skin will toughen
and I'll rot away in an orchard
somewhere in Maine.
Maybe I'll slip inside the sun
and see what exactly a nuclear furnace is,
what colors burn brightest.

Or maybe, what's truest is;
this is the last time I think I can bear this.
After this, it's only me,
a wool sweater, a clever conversation,
lust and lovely linens
but nothing, ever again, approaching love.
I'll turn inward like a broken compass
and write and read and
slowly become Emily Dickinson.
It was all laid out long, long ago.
I'll wear black, instead, so people can tell us apart.

Say No, Say Yes

They tell me a plane is just the ticket, that silence is best kept. That I should say nothing to you, wait and if you come back on your own, then it's true. No, I should sit outside your door. Yes, while you sleep I should cover from your doorstep to where you're going with poetry, with your name and mine, entwined. That you should find me, charcoal in hand, in the middle of the night, outside your window. Or maybe say nothing, tell you it's okay, that I know nothing and everything can happen from this moment on. That whatever's next will break us down or apart, or into pieces so small we'll never be able to find them all. I make a fool of myself; I'm unsure. You'd laugh, but it's true, you turn a small part of me inside out, make me reconsider the cool silences between last night and this one. I imagine I can close my eyes, smell your hair, the points of your fingers dancing warm on mine. Neither of us need love, neither of us think this is wise. From two people who're known for being pragmatic realists it's a dangerous propostion. Maybe we should turn away, smother a flustering flame in sand and sky. Maybe I should stop imagining your smile coming easy, stop running your name over my tongue like a sweet. This is all possibility, you know?

What matters, here? Really? That if you were here I'd have long ago laughed when you grew wild and afraid, kissed your eyes, held my hand against your runaway heart until you were calm and sure. If this is distance that made you fall towards the horizon and distance alone, know this - I will unravel every mile between us. It means nothing to me. Haven't you figured it out by now? It's all possibility. And you, it's you.

Desire.

What is this fire?

In Warmth and Hunger

I tuck my legs beneath me, wrap myself in warmth and hunger. I rest my head on the arm of the loveseat; my eyes focus and refocus on your name, your face. Your uncertain smile begins to flicker and finally fade. My hands grow heavy over time. I am used to the bright hiccup of your laugh but now somehow manage to hear the quicksilver slide of one disobedient tear slip and fall into the rough upholstery. The signs are no longer clear, I search for intent. Not long ago you whispered poetry across the ocean until I writhed with longing for your voice. Did I imagine my throat sore from words unsaid? Do you grow tired, dropping your head to a plastic pillow, your monitor glaring blankly down?

I spun silver and green for you, promises whipped into a froth and a skipping giggle. In the rushing blush of want and imagination I found you. I found you. Now let me hear your answer, if it's your nervous call or a dark and hollow no, I can bear it. All but silence, all but this, whatever the price of pleasure, I'll pay and count myself lucky.

"Are you alright? I wish you'd give me a little clue.
Is there something that you want to say? 'Cause you took off without a word.
Are you alright, you flew away like a little bird.
Is there anything I can do? 'Cause I need to hear from you."
- Lucinda Williams

Le Premier Homme

J'attendrai, il me démêlerai me. Les étoiles chuchotent son nom.

I Bear the Hard News

I bear the hard news,
the shaking trees
unfurling darkly across a winter-whitened sky.

I rock back and forth for only a moment,
my eyes turning back, far back
to memories that play like a sick reel-to-reel.

Good thing now, my bones are plated in steel,
my gut, mesh and wire,
my feet are bare and blue.

I bear the hard news,
and I bear it alone
and even the stars whisper your name.

I am frantic, searching,
my hair unwashed and falling,
lank and dark across my shoulder.

I eat stones, I taste iron,
resting my head on concrete
my hands ragged and torn.

I bear the hard news,
and the world begins to buzz
and finally to split.

Sonata Pathétique

I am always a disappointment, I'm afraid. I speak clearly of beautiful people, eyes flashing across dinner tables and concert halls. I am not even the same species, sleeves too short, skin too blemished. Not even my sorrows are original, copied from my betters. There will never be a man who gasps to see me in cobalt silk, skin like cream and bisque. Eyes will always slide over me, judging correctly what I have to offer and oh, it always falls short. How I laugh loudest, never last, cheap pantyhose unraveling beneath stapled hems.

"You are nothing; you have nothing."

You Number the Stars

You number the stars, find secrets in science
and silence.
You turned and climbed,
whispered foreign phrases.

"I outran grief;
I graphed here, the points of loss.
Do you see, now,
how I could not fail?"

You kneel to the ground,
laughing, wanting,
reciting the names of the gods,
translating the geometry of want
and the physics of loss.

Did I wait too late,
your gently burning heart
skipping like a turning record?

Fields Lie Fallow

Fields lie fallow;
birds wheel wildly in a blankly burning sky.
There is a dreadful waiting,
the sigh before the wailing cry.
the silent hiss of an ill-turned radio.
What next? I can only beg.
The crackling bark of lightning,
the terrible will of the fog.

I collapse and fold myself beneath myself,
hands over my head,
as freezing rain counts off:
This is not a drill.
This is not a drill.

The Shivering Moon

Since we've met, it seems the stars have left the sky. I could pull the dense blanket of night around my shoulders and there hardly be a murmur to protest. The moon is as bright as an eye, a shiny dime leaching into silvery white, sneaking past and scattering shards across my bed and my sleeping face.

You laugh upon hearing this, insist there are too many stars to name still whispering brightly toward me. I leave you and stand under a blank, dark sky and wonder if you, too, see the shivering moon turning alone.