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b e mccomb Oct 2016
i'm eighteen and
my mind is running away

you're screaming
ranting and raving
but don't know you're
doing it and don't know
that i'm crawling
inside a cave where
nothing can touch me
except wanting to die

you were grumbling after
dinner that i don't talk
to anybody anymore
but you don't know that i'm
not lacking words i'm just
lacking the energy
that it would take to
use any of them

(flashbacks to all the times recently
you've complained i don't love you
anymore. to my whole lifetime of
wondering if you loved me at all)


i'm thirteen and
unaware of my anxiety
associated with existence
usually put in in writing as
"pressure". but you don't think
there's anyone pressuring me

i talk too much to too
many people and have
been hurt before. but
never in that abject
way of it being because
i set myself up for it

(emotions so haywire that i end
up hospitalized over a box of
broken cd cases. now that i
remember it i was rage cleaning
and would unquestionably have
an even worse reaction today)


i'm seven and
having another ocular
migraine even though
i don't know it

(the past as as brittle as the
uncooked spaghetti filched
from the box and wedging
between my crooked teeth)


my memory fails me
whether you steamed
your way through preparing
dinner in the kitchen of faded
herbal wallpaper with words
and woodgrain. if i've been
tuning it out all this time
only to notice recently

("you're just like me" you said today
my seven-year old self thinks that's cool
while my current self is wishing to
deck someone while saying nothing)


today and tonight when intrusive
memories keep coming back is when i
remember that if i don't automatically
see things from your side there will
be a row. despite the fact you have
never investigated my perspective

(you're complaining about how
badly you sleep and how it's my
fault for waking you up at
four a.m. but did you ever stop
to ask why the ******* your
daughter is awake at four a.m.)


"my whole body hurts" you said
having taken some chronic
illnesses for some light grocery
shopping and attend a reception
"so does mine" i said
having taken a dark cloud
with me to work and
a panic attack to the library
"mine hurts worse" you replied
"and how do you know that" i demanded
sweeping my sadness off the kitchen table
"because i just do"

i guess your problem is that you
don't know how to be in pain without
minimizing mine but how hypocritical
when i'm over here minimizing
your pain to justify the fact that
my brain is trying to **** my body

(one of these days i fear what
i don't say will get the best
of me and i will crack clean
in two. start screaming
through doors death threats
ending in quadruple homicide
accompanied by my own
swinging body. it's not that
i hate everyone i just hate
feeling like i hate everyone)


but for now i'm investigating the perspective
so startlingly clear that you never loved me
just did what was required of you and so by that
standard i never would have loved you either
Copyright 10/7/16 by B. E. McComb
  Oct 2016 b e mccomb
scully
i have survived
storms.
i have survived a father's voice like thunder;
handprint lightning flowers petal over my skin
like i am a garden to sinners-
adam and eve call my grassroots their home and hum lullabies-
i have survived
anger.
pros and cons of
clock-ticking therapy sessions where money is thrown at my gaze,
fixed on the wall,
dollar-a-second drumming fingers
screaming so loud that heaven shuts the blinds and hangs a "closed" sign on the door.
pros and cons of
stumbling home,
under a murky peerless crowd of smoke,
slurring words trail around and behind me like moths to a porchlight.
morning headaches,
angry adults
damaging drywall and breaking family portraits
exhausting search for answers
exhausting search in a silence that lengthens the disconnect from child to mother
where your mind goes red and the honest truth that stays stuck to the roof of your mouth falls out
where you become an overflowing mailbox and your hands shake
the absence of parents who never taught you to hold your tongue
i have survived
hurt.
i have survived the specific type of loss that you feel in the pit of your stomach
the one that lies next to you
when you stare at the ceiling and your face hurts from crying
tears scrub your eyelids raw and you promise,
"if i ever make it through this,
i will never be here again."
i have survived giving up,
taking it all back, throwing it all away,
parallel structures of contemplation and decision
i have survived
lonely.
angry storms of abandonment, melodies of the lonely and the hurt
i reprise to the ones that add injury to insult,
you are not the worst thing that has ever happened to me.
i echo choruses to the people that force me to grow up at sixteen
i have destruction embedded into my neurotransmitters
i have shooting post-traumatic pain in my memories
i have survived
a hell that your hands are not stained enough to touch.
i assure you,
my love,
i will survive
you as well
  Oct 2016 b e mccomb
bleh
you stopped visiting the ocean after your brother died
so we drove inland, instead, that day
and found the pit of old bunkers
left to decay
        from a more actively
                                  apocalyptic age
and, inside, the
      eschewal vision of
                                      tinned food,
                                                           concrete pillars,
   liquid flesh
warm comfort in disintegration,
    emerald concavities that lace the sky

we considered stealing some ****, but just drove on back instead,
  leave history to history


if you stack the boxes, there will be more space, you-
   yeah, just like that.
    the chairs have no back, sorry, so you'll have to be careful.
sorry, i just have to deal with,
  yeah, the drain pipes broke again,
   it now decants into the living room, all
  dammed up with paper mache and static

so uh
   make yourself some tea if you have to
   -ah, no, sorry, i didn't mean to be curt
it's just,
there's no time
    but stay, anyway, please

it gets lonely at night
                  all boarded windows and
                                                     old casements
till in the end you're just
              embracing a
                               damp ****** guilt
just to pass the time
           with a forgiveness complex


do you think you'd do it?
they make you wear their shirt, and take a photo,
but they give a free ice-cream at the end.
i mean, it doesn't cost you anything,
                         nothing palpable, anyway


remember that time we drove inland?
   and found that petrified forest,
                        buried in basalt and pumice?
we walked among treetops, near the old crater lake
    and
                         skipped stones
`
b e mccomb Oct 2016
found myself washing dishes
in a bra and pajama pants
watching the rain like
i would watch a movie
with half my attention
and my hands full

anxiety and rage
had hit me again
but halfway through
what i had set out to do
i found myself so tired
i had to sit down and
watch through the oven
door as my life burned away

and i knew that my
five a.m. had
come this time at
five p.m. and
things had finally
gotten bad

but i have to pretend
i'm okay as long as
it's still daylight out
thank goodness
the days keep getting
shorter and shorter
because i do so get
tired of lying to myself.
Copyright 9/30/16 by B. E. McComb
b e mccomb Oct 2016
i love new cds
the crinkle of sliding
plastic wrap off
how it feels to remove
the security label
in two tries or less

to see my eyes on
the backs of songs
crystal clear and
iridescent

(too new to be vintage
too old to be cool)


how smooth a brand
new jewel case feels
and a booklet before
fingerprints

but then again i love
finding them secondhand
a little smeared and
pages crinkled

how a brand new
album is a blank
slate for me to write
my memories on
and when the plastic
cracks and the music
plays on it all just proves
that together we lived

(hoping and praying we didn't get
scratched to the point of no return)


i was born in
the fall of a fleeting
shimmering silver age
the hybrid time
between analogue
for the common man
and digitization
of the masses

my childhood
when these things
were still fragile
expensive
slipping into
adulthood and
falling into
feeling obsolete

*(i am the last remaining
child of the compact disc)
Copyright 9/30/16 by B. E. McComb
b e mccomb Sep 2016
i never wanted to
be the reason you
found yourself wrapped
in a blanket on the patio
at sunrise one cool
september morning

i never wanted
to be the reason
you cried the
ugly kind of tears

(i never wanted to be this
selfish because come to
think of it i'm about
the worst for selfish)


i want to be the
reason you laugh
the reason you look at
the world a little differently

the reason you drop
everything in the dead of
night to go have an adventure
of hilarious proportions

the reason you go shopping
for an ugly wedding gift
and give some boy out there
half the hell i gave yours

the reason you go to
concerts and take road trips
or feel loved when you
crawl under an afghan

the reason you dry
your tears and decide
to commit an act you might
regret someday like
vandalism or climbing on
someone else's roof.

(and you can't change
my mind
only i can change
my mind
but you can say things
so profound i reconsider)


i never want to be the
reason you put on a black dress
get in the car and drive to a
funeral where you feel
compelled to stand up in front of
everyone we know and
make a speech even though your
tongue is frozen to your teeth

and i never want to be the
reason you lie awake
at night wondering what
you could have changed
haunted all your life
by the person you lost

i never want to be the
reason you leave a cursive
memento with my name
at the bottom of an ivory
program and a bouquet of
black roses next to the pulpit

and i never want to be the
reason you cry

(i never want to be
the reason you cry
but the trouble is that
i can't find reasons to stay)


and i'm sorry
i'm sorry
a hundred
and one times

i'm sorry for
everything

(i'm sorry
you love me
but i'm not sorry
for loving you)


and i'm
sorry
for making
you cry.
Copyright 9/27/16 by B. E. McComb
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