Bruises to prove it

what didn't fade with time
faded from distance
small
features in the rear-view
i looked at your house
waving and smiling
your door already closed

funny this blood connection
our chemical crush, our holy ghosts,
atoms, particles, cells, bones
blood
prayer
funny how you say you love him
when you don't
im sorry about
our  fury
of mistakes

i clench my teeth at night
ball my fingers into fists
i read ancient scriptures
searching for the answers
in fables and parables, in allegories
the language of women and children 

it's the missing you
part - i hadn't counted on
the variable - the ghost 
i figured in for additions and subtractions
the lovers and passing of the moon
the  placement of diamond rings 
 time + distance + blood type 
the subset of X 
add it up
nothing between us
has ever
made
sense

 

Penny Candy

     Not much here. the road - a few dirty pennies on the ground. leaves falling from trees. On the grass, a light morning dew, the pavement reflects a diamond mist, shards of glass in amounts endless. birds song over hum of a\c condenser. It shakes beneath the window. shades are open but the windows are fogged so badly - the room is cold. blankets.
she met me here, stayed the night. she's gone now , maybe to work, im not sure she has a job. maybe school? she says she's writing. im not sure. im a writer. ha ha ha. Im writing this on the back of a book of matches. the words are small, Ill light it on fire when im finished.
she left early this morning. It was still dark. It was the first time weve seen each other in a few years. It was the same but different. No, it was the same. it was whatever i told myself it would be. If i still wanted to love her i could. If i wanted her body, if i wanted to hate her. I could.  i only know one way to make love to her - hard. dirty. my body wont let me do anything else. it is difficult to be tender. i cant be anywhere but in the moment. like an animal. It's chemicals..she believes it too. Its why we follow each other. state to state, city to city. in dreams.  there are often no words and long distances and... no words. not before or after or now. we just sometimes fall together...cosmically by design. we say hi,  she asks would you?  just one more time. let's.  we should, we shouldn't. Shall we? Yes. say yes. just say yes.

  I didn't  find the bible but i prayed. It's usually in the top drawer of the night stand.  isnt it?  not that i would read it but it's the knowing its there. like you and I.  it makes me feel safe somehow. like it was worth it to drive all this way to make this mistake. - and it is a mistake as much as its not. It's something we know better than but do anyway. life is short and painful. all those excuses make it better and worse. Us. the flaw in us. in all of us who haven't overcome the attraction. 

When i finish, i immediately feel us slip away. I fall between that space of  anxiety and calm. the desire that drove me all those miles begins to rapidly fade. I put it all inside her. she has it now.. all my good words,  she has the books and maps and she has me...inside her. my life. and i have....nothing.  i turn on my side and give a thumbs up to the darkness. my small victory. i had her. I smile into an imaginary camera filming the movie of my life. I think this might be the last time and I wonder upon this grand closure. never enough, never satisfying. there is a candy on the night stand which i pick up and put in my mouth. It's ever so sweet. she left this to remind me of her. i light the match and watch the words burn.

she just likes to fight

the sun. the ocean, the everglades, the sky. the silence. the flat stones. the gravel, the insects. the wind and the clouds. the moon. the stars. the west and the east. the song, the color, the smell of the earth.

ipod playing music i like. the clouds hang low, grey in a movie fake sky. probably, I wouldnt know. it's getting warm again and you are far again. the breeze carries a silence and a happiness you can't get when the sun rises. shades pulled down, sleepy with distant voices in my head, hers and mine. existence without anxiety. happiness. knowing your body. understanding the real needs of man. the universe was born in violence. stars and love die violently.

perhaps there is no silence. or maybe its just that time is too compact to allow for silence to be felt.

the sun. the ocean, the everglades, the sky. the silence. the flat stones. the gravel, the insects. the wind and the clouds. the moon. the stars. the west and the east. the song, the color, the smell of the earth.


art: casey oconnell