From everything that has passed in my hands
I’ve kept a little dirt
I don’t want to be clean, don’t want to be rid
I still bring my palms to my nose
Close my eyes and think of a life
A time once, times, twice
That I want back, that I can almost believe
My sweet, my breath, my music
As if death had claimed your presence
Alive in my dirty palms
I trace your face with my tears
The outline of a world in dust
Softer, is what I heard. Like cream on my skin. Feathers.
As if the thought of bruises was too much. As if I had shifted. Has my place changed?
Shared but unspoken. Too many images merged to stay sharp.
Softer, like your fingers inside me.
Softer, like my hair on your thighs.
I had forgotten about the yearning.
Yesterday, you said. Yesterday, and it became softer.
To the thought of you
To the idea of your scent
To the passing echo of your breath
I will say when you ask
I will scream when you thrust
I will whisper when you invite
I want to be troubled
I wrote it once
And meant it in so many ways
And I wasn’t sure, wasn’t certain
If put together they touched
So many words I held back
And so many I erased
Send (your message has been sent)
You read them
And I hoped you’d understand
Now you wrote them
And meant them in so many ways
Did you remember?
I read them
And understanding did not change anything
Back, full circle, home, the center
My universe spilled at your blind eyes
My blood your logon at startup
And I was the one
Am the one
Leading
Now
Enter
There it is
Opened again, wide
For your eyes to do what your hands cannot
Asleep was comfortable
Awake is painful
Opened is blistering
But necessary
I offered, gave, pushed, fed
I now sacrifice what’s left
A foetus of a woman
In a hostile womb
Born from sins and cries
Raised on lips and hands and hair and thighs and
The milk taken out of my mouth
I now scavenge the depths of my memories for food
To see
In the mirror
The real image
Of my new skin
It was a new home
A new space
Unknown unfamiliar
That I seeked
What does my soul look like?
Some days are just not meant to be
Some place I wish I hadn’t gone to
Some words I hoped I’d never hear
For fear of never hearing them again
There is no place for me to run to
No direction that won’t take me back to here
deal. deal. deal.
All day, even on the ones not meant to be
Drowned in my indecisions
deal for fuck’s sake
deal I can, it’s not final
Just a place with a chair for me
I sit I deal I live for the moment after
Fresh start or clean slate
The moment after is dealt with
It’s the past, the past, the
deal
let
me
go
Behind my back, I cheat.
The higher the stakes, the sleepier I get.
I have lost everything for sleep.
I’m tired.
The dead has kept me awake lately.
The lifelessness of my dusty past.
That should have remained inanimate.
It moves within as a block, as a whole, dropping flecks of necrosed moments.
My eyelids solidfied opened, unable to slide down on the dryness of of my eyes.
Fragments, chips, flakes falling over my irises, green becoming grey.
I have to see, I have to look.
I am awake.
Sometimes the boulder is a real one.
Sometimes the boulder is just a prop, like in Hollywood.
Looking at them you’d never know the difference.
Anticipation of the effort ahead is misled.
I gamble a lot.
There was something wrong that summer.
She was drunk a lot, he was high a lot.
Too many people were sleeping over.
The music was always too loud.
Someone made me drink a glass of Tia Maria with milk.
We had a new car, a summer home, new furniture.
Something wrong.
We were three for the last time.
This is me, this was me.
I remember everything, except what I forgot.