The skin of his knuckles split obediently between bone and brick. His forehead is fevered with rage in stark contrast to the cool stone it is grinding against. His arms are the pistons of a locomotive's combustion engine, as he pounds away against the brick wall that he knows will never be deteriorated by his punishment. His hands, however, have already begun to. But he doesn't care. The pain is what he came here for. To this darkened back alley in the wrong part of town. The same part of town everyone visits to do their own personal dirty deeds. Among hookers, dealers, hustlers, certifiable madmen, and street urchins he feels noble and downright spiritual.
"Everything you need to be happy is within yourself." The psychiatrist at the Mental Hospital had said. This new breed of white suburban bodhisattvas sickened him. He hated to watch centuries of eastern religion and philosophy co-opted for American self-help books. And now here he was, co-opting it for his own purposes. This thought only made him angrier. Red trickles down the wall; the one thing in this world that he knows is irrevocably his.
So he pounds away on nigh invulnerable brick, knowing that the only one he has to blame is himself. For all the things he rued about the state of his psyche, no one could ever accuse him of being in denial. Quite the opposite is true, as he plants his feet in the cement, face to face with this city, trying to make it all go away, one feeble attack at a time. He watches his blood trickle down the wall, and through constant jolts of painful release, sees the only thing is this world that no one can take away from him. This blood is his.
He leaves pieces of himself behind, as he turns and walks away. Dogs judge territory by less than this. His hands are first bruised, then bloodied and finally broken: Bruised as his ego. Broken like the spell his rage had cast. He walks into the open street a humbled man, shoulders sunken with fatigue, chest heaving impassioned puffs into cold air.
Saturday, 14 November 2009
PULSE
Those naughty words I said,
that were whispered and reverberated inside your head
(and continued in my absence,
making you as drunk, dirty, and free as good absinthe),
simply must not be forgotten
until the fruit of carnal knowledge is fermented and rotted.
Naughty words were uttered with fingers to flesh,
while my lips were monitoring the pulse on your neck.
(Your heartbeat shed light on your quivering needs
as my hand moved slowly up your leg from your knee)
With ecstasy you understood my hands in the dark
As i cut into your flesh without leaving a mark.
...
that were whispered and reverberated inside your head
(and continued in my absence,
making you as drunk, dirty, and free as good absinthe),
simply must not be forgotten
until the fruit of carnal knowledge is fermented and rotted.
Naughty words were uttered with fingers to flesh,
while my lips were monitoring the pulse on your neck.
(Your heartbeat shed light on your quivering needs
as my hand moved slowly up your leg from your knee)
With ecstasy you understood my hands in the dark
As i cut into your flesh without leaving a mark.
...
The Lover of You : The Surgeon in Me
If I had died, just to be by your side
would you not still weep in the wake of my demise?
And if I had initially lied just to be by your side,
would you still lay awake at night with bloodshot eyes?
What if I had split open your ribs, in search of your heart
with a surgeon's attention to detail and art...?
Would you still lay, splayed open, and say:
"Don't you ever... ever go away."
No. You'd just scream and scream
until your sure I know exactly what you mean.
And in an obscene dream,
you'd see me and believe, finally.
That it isn't me that has ever been your greatest need
but something less attainable
but something you are doomed to find
as soon as you are stable.
would you not still weep in the wake of my demise?
And if I had initially lied just to be by your side,
would you still lay awake at night with bloodshot eyes?
What if I had split open your ribs, in search of your heart
with a surgeon's attention to detail and art...?
Would you still lay, splayed open, and say:
"Don't you ever... ever go away."
No. You'd just scream and scream
until your sure I know exactly what you mean.
And in an obscene dream,
you'd see me and believe, finally.
That it isn't me that has ever been your greatest need
but something less attainable
but something you are doomed to find
as soon as you are stable.
Dear Kind Stranger
First of all I want to thank you for helping me out of the middle of the street today. I fall down a lot. I know you thought I was drunk or doped up, so thank you for giving me your email anyway.
Things haven’t been the same lately, you see. The accident was almost year ago. Now that the superficial wounds have healed I keep thinking about how ordinary that day was, how completely normal that morning had been. I’ve been over it a million times and nowadays the accident itself seems just as ordinary, completely normal. I was a waitress late for a shift and I merged wrong. It really is that simple. Now everything has changed.
The way I walk: I saw you notice the drag of my left foot, my swagger...my limp. That’s because I’m too short and I used to put the seatbelt behind my back so it wouldn’t irritate my neck. When I hit the other car head on, my upper body was thrown forward hard enough to severely dislocate my hips and crack my pelvis under the seatbelt’s restraint. I’d be dead otherwise, so I guess I should be grateful but I fall down in front of strangers more often than I’d like to admit. For me everyday is that same old dream of showing up to school naked. I only tell you this so you can understand: Blending in is not an option for me.
The way I talk: I know you couldn’t understand me, when I tried to explain to you about the accident. My words get lost between my brain and tongue. I know you didn’t get it when I told you I was sober. That I just got in an accident is all. I just hit the wheel which caused what’s been described to me as a ‘partial disconnect’ that occurred in my speech centers. Doctors say I’m lucky I took the impact with my upper forehead, the only part of it that could withstand it, apparently. But I’m telling you now, that my cognitive abilities are unchanged. It’s just this damn machine I live in is broken and the mechanics have already fixed as much they are able.
I’m ashamed to admit how long this email has taken me to write, but please don’t worry yourself with these things. For it is in this way that I can be the most normal. So I’m writing you now to thank you: for leaving me my dignity when you walked away smiling. For now, I can only assume you’ve given me your real address. And even if this email never finds you, thank you for the subtlety of your rejection.
With no reason for restraint,
Mona.
Things haven’t been the same lately, you see. The accident was almost year ago. Now that the superficial wounds have healed I keep thinking about how ordinary that day was, how completely normal that morning had been. I’ve been over it a million times and nowadays the accident itself seems just as ordinary, completely normal. I was a waitress late for a shift and I merged wrong. It really is that simple. Now everything has changed.
The way I walk: I saw you notice the drag of my left foot, my swagger...my limp. That’s because I’m too short and I used to put the seatbelt behind my back so it wouldn’t irritate my neck. When I hit the other car head on, my upper body was thrown forward hard enough to severely dislocate my hips and crack my pelvis under the seatbelt’s restraint. I’d be dead otherwise, so I guess I should be grateful but I fall down in front of strangers more often than I’d like to admit. For me everyday is that same old dream of showing up to school naked. I only tell you this so you can understand: Blending in is not an option for me.
The way I talk: I know you couldn’t understand me, when I tried to explain to you about the accident. My words get lost between my brain and tongue. I know you didn’t get it when I told you I was sober. That I just got in an accident is all. I just hit the wheel which caused what’s been described to me as a ‘partial disconnect’ that occurred in my speech centers. Doctors say I’m lucky I took the impact with my upper forehead, the only part of it that could withstand it, apparently. But I’m telling you now, that my cognitive abilities are unchanged. It’s just this damn machine I live in is broken and the mechanics have already fixed as much they are able.
I’m ashamed to admit how long this email has taken me to write, but please don’t worry yourself with these things. For it is in this way that I can be the most normal. So I’m writing you now to thank you: for leaving me my dignity when you walked away smiling. For now, I can only assume you’ve given me your real address. And even if this email never finds you, thank you for the subtlety of your rejection.
With no reason for restraint,
Mona.
[with bloodied knuckles] He writes it down.
and she said “flesh” as the whole world blurred into her.
and you screamed but silently.
and burst but non-violently
but it wasn’t her words that necessarily tore you apart
it was the weight of the silence that you waded in afterward
that you waited in wordlessly as she simply stared coldly forward blowing smoke
you haven’t got a clue.
So whisper “But if not you... then who?”
but your words come unstuck from each other as if they hadn’t any glue
and the feeling in your guts is wretched but not new when
you hold your breath and he puts down the pen.
and you screamed but silently.
and burst but non-violently
but it wasn’t her words that necessarily tore you apart
it was the weight of the silence that you waded in afterward
that you waited in wordlessly as she simply stared coldly forward blowing smoke
you haven’t got a clue.
So whisper “But if not you... then who?”
but your words come unstuck from each other as if they hadn’t any glue
and the feeling in your guts is wretched but not new when
you hold your breath and he puts down the pen.
Hospital.
What do you do when
Rhetoric. Disfunction. Congenial guises of sterility in actual bio-wasted stupor...
Will i be the same person forever?
Nuero-bomb drops. Isnt?
Crumpled tissue, hypodermic shame, spectacle spectacle.
your coat supposed to be whiter?
Actual tangible fog injected
Curtain curtain. Draw closed the curtain.
Guttural moans through not sterile walls
Rocking back and forth and
back and forth and
Have you been drinking?
I don’t drink.
Have you been thinking about hurting yourself.
I don’t think.
Calm down fuck you don’t swear i don’t care
Crumpled boy, not sterile, not sane, leaking. Leaking out.
Through holes in eyes and one in arm
Not to not to
back and forth and
Not to regain asylum in the insane asylum
Please, not to.
back and forth and
Security past curtain,
insecurity
through haze of whatthafuckaxanol or
Don’t keep their voices down.
triptandfellanine or
And rocking back and forth and
Innappropryl or
back and forth and
Don’t keep their voices down.
The backs of black leather boots hold the space between the curtain and floor
Cant take anymore.
Drugs.
Rhetoric. Disfunction. Congenial guises of sterility in actual bio-wasted stupor...
Will i be the same person forever?
Nuero-bomb drops. Isnt?
Crumpled tissue, hypodermic shame, spectacle spectacle.
your coat supposed to be whiter?
Actual tangible fog injected
Curtain curtain. Draw closed the curtain.
Guttural moans through not sterile walls
Rocking back and forth and
back and forth and
Have you been drinking?
I don’t drink.
Have you been thinking about hurting yourself.
I don’t think.
Calm down fuck you don’t swear i don’t care
Crumpled boy, not sterile, not sane, leaking. Leaking out.
Through holes in eyes and one in arm
Not to not to
back and forth and
Not to regain asylum in the insane asylum
Please, not to.
back and forth and
Security past curtain,
insecurity
through haze of whatthafuckaxanol or
Don’t keep their voices down.
triptandfellanine or
And rocking back and forth and
Innappropryl or
back and forth and
Don’t keep their voices down.
The backs of black leather boots hold the space between the curtain and floor
Cant take anymore.
Drugs.
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