the squinting of the wind
as it whips me about
pulling and driving,
throwing me into the street,
leaving me gasping for air.

then the lights from above.
orange and violet and flecked
like your cheeks, like your ring.
you're looking into my eyes,
something is reminding you of me.

the low hum from the backseat
we don't know all the words
but we know most of them.
somehow, you don't look over at me.

the lethargy and strange pellucidity of dusk
in the corner of the city where light hangs
like satin off the curves of a goddess
getting ready for bed.

then, one thousand cups of black tea.
hands on the table, the glass door
calendars all falling off the walls
as the room shakes, days drifting to the floor.

everything spins in orbit
and it doesn't seem to matter
that nothing makes sense,
that the liberty of delineation
is intentionally stripped.

an effulgent twilight may be soaking
through your raw and simmering skin,
but my only fear in this moment
is that I'm still holding back.

fear is useless.
or at least, it should be.
it isn't.
fear stands on the edge of hope and teeters
until it falls, it tumbles, it drops to its death
and your stomach goes with it.
fear leaves your mouth dry
and your lips chapped
and a vile taste on your tongue,
but maybe those are just excuses.
there's a possibility
that all your deliberate shortcomings
and bewildered apprehensions
are just rocks in the landslide,
simply supports for the growing fortification
that is your inescapable fear.
maybe it all adds up.
maybe fear is what keeps us safe.
can you tell I've begun to make friends with her?
I'm finally letting her in.
she tells me things,
she whispers in my ear:
"you are correct, your misgivings are confirmed."
she's like a fortune teller that way;
she reads my shaking palms
and listens for the wind, my psalms
sung softly in the darkness.
she knows she can convince me
that I'm right.
I'm tired of waiting for the fear to break.
spiraling downwards through the void
somewhere between dread
and senseless anxiety;
I've been here before.
there's still a hole in the floor.
I'm keeping myself awake.
I'm crashing to the ground and resurrecting
with a cold sweat and broken arms.
tell me it's not going to be all right.
I only want the satisfaction of knowing,
finally, that my fear is rational.
I'm terrified.
so let me know.

4 apr, 00:47

isn't it alarming
to have such faith
in an oncoming train?
maybe I need a rest.

we could all use more of that.
lately you've been throwing yourself
into fits of fury and static waves.

you can't be shaky,
I'm shaky,
that's me.

please don't hide in the brush again.
the creeping tendrils of hanging plants
draped over your shoulders,
a cloak of twisting emerald fingers.

and you're scared,
and you're breathing;
you swell up and become the fog.

suddenly everything stops
and I am aware of where I stand.
I am here.

every inch of the skin
of succulents and small children
turns crimson,
all at once.

I had these maps in my hands
and I traced the paths to their ends
only to find that the mountains there
are, in reality, only clumps of soil.

it isn't what you thought.
these maps are all wrong.

but,
fear is not the edge of the forest.
fear is the darkest thicket, the heart.
be careful in those woods.

I remember him.
I still dream about him sometimes,
except there he is softer
and he speaks to me.

I remember him;
things he used to do,
the way the world used to be.
he was the sun
and he looked the part.
he hurt to look at,
the curve of his lips
stained the insides of my eyelids
and left me blind.

"I broke you," he once said.
he meant it, he sounded proud.
how excruciatingly distressing it is
to want to teach someone
whom you are afraid of.

I remember him.
he would play with the curls
that fell out when my hair was *******,
the ones on the back of my neck.
he twirled them around his fingers
and crept into the nothingness
like some spreading web.

oh, but then there's the cruelty
without shadow of blossoming.
he was fond of slamming doors,
simply because he could.
everyone saw stars in his tired eyes
and in turn began to feel them in their own.
leaving was always a question
of whether he would say goodbye.
he seldom did so.

I remember the colors in his face
brushed on by his father the sun,
as he showed me how to use his gun.
I wish I had it back.
not him, the gun.
I don't know.

I was pretending to look away.
he was balling up paper plates
and throwing them in the trash.
we were riding in the backseat of the car,
we were up in the balcony, crying
we were rarely out in the sun.

it all started with him not knowing my name.
I think it ended that way, too.

everyone knows something
that you have never heard of.
and there is one thing that you know
which no one else does.

don't you feel special?

one list, two hands
cut off at the wrists,
three and a half bags of sand.

for centuries I was in constant dread
of this night:
the culmination of something
that was only pure
and strangely clean,
yet it still made us tremble.

all these people
progressing like a restless sea
shifting plates under my feet
everyone is here.

no one is here.

emerging from the cave
and quivering even so.
hundreds of faces,
those colors blended together
an onslaught of trepidation.

[just like raw skin,
I feel it more than a muscle does.
I'm the untreated wound;
I am shuddering at the touch.]

don't shoot --

you'll scare the animal away.

oh, but it's too late.

these days,
it's a gradual, shaky descent;
I'm waning, deteriorating,
I can feel myself getting worse.

I am not a rock
nor do I fall through fingers
like water,
and I can tell that you're parched.
I can feel you trying
to melt me.

you can't hide in the bushes
or pull the floorboards up over your head
anymore.
it's gone too far.

where's the fun
in someone
you can't drag around?

see how the animals
scatter immediately
from the empty field
as the rifle is fired.

look at how inconvenient that is.
it isn't worth it.
and now it isn't a secret.

no one knows
until they know.

and now they know.

Where are you?
Could you name this place?
The escalator breaks and everyone complains that they have to walk.
Your feet don't hurt yet.
You see your reflection in the glass window overlooking the city
And you don't recognize yourself.
You're just another faded face in the dark.

These little ants
In their yellowing house,
Speaking of revolutions
Talking about ideas far too big for their tiny heads.
They stutter and almost implode from the pressure
Of these unfathomable thoughts.

There are too many paintings on the walls.
Getting old puts a damper on things, doesn't it?
Some of us have bigger forces behind them,
Against them,
For them.
You're beginning to understand why some people don't get better.

If things were different,
If things were different,
If things were different --
Over and over, you tell yourself this.
You write it all over your skin.
You scream it, but no one even hears you.
You are starting to lose your voice.

there are bystanders
and there are activists,
the ones who care enough
to attempt some futile rebellion
by taking a seat on the wrong side
of the couch.
it doesn't sound like much,
but it is.

lately,
your hands are always
on that bottle of glue.
I guess it's better
than a bottle
of something else.

look at me,
the famished beggar
quenched and grateful
and silent
in consumption.

I do take hold of it
and clutch it in my palm
even if you can't see it.

and then, the impact.
it comes quickly
in lambent fractals
an unsettling, gleaming mess
of lightheadedness
and holds me in paralysis.

It doesn't belong to me.
it never did.
and there is still that guilt
buried deep within;
it howls in the night
and whispers incessantly
in the afternoons.

it is dry gluttony
incarnate in the hardest
of gazes, of nights in indigo
and in the softest
of ratted fabrics.

look, I remembered for once.
that's a step
in the right direction
but I've still got so far to go.

don't you know
you have so little time,
in the blink of an eye,
the flutter of a lash
you'll be insipid ash.

you've got to go
it's better you're blinded
by crimson sand and salt
than you stay and wait
for a hurricane.

the torrents, these downpours
but we all stay the same --
we refuse to move away
from the shore.