Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fiction. Show all posts

Friday, October 29, 2010

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.

Saturday, November 7, 2009

Be good or be Gone

the other tragedy- I'm yours but hopelessly romanticize every situation.
at the grocery store i look into other peoples baskets and when i catch someone looking into mine i wonder if we all don't fall in love a little.
just between produce and dairy. the smell of candy, of fresh baked bread.
At check-out our carts lightly touch. her bug bitten legs. my chipped finger nail polish left on since Halloween. its my job to notice. its my story to tell. we browse the magazines while waiting our turn: new chewing gum, new fade diets, flu-scares, celebrity faces, horoscopes.
she pays. i pay. we go about our separate ways. our separate lives.
a quick glance, a slight smile enough to know it isn't just me.


it was who she was in the dark, cigarettes and mumbled sleep and a hundred other things nameable and not.

the devils in me. sadness. no reason- maybe the radio.
cellos. calamity.
maybe I'm not sad.
this could be calm.
this could be what soothing feels like.
this could be me without noise. i listen to my inside voice. no echo.
the vibrations are a hum.

the trouble with everything is how suddenly it could turn to nothing. every candy a toothache in a fancy wrapper.

a book filled with poetry and fuck stories. my lies. our lies. our nothing.
the devil is loose in my heart and she likes it rough. like it was in your room the night you let me stay. A sunny skied morning turned a starry night.
whatever she says. whatever god says.
whatever the darkness tells me to do.
after dreaming i write to her. i want to click send and open old wounds.
she fucked the words out of me.
bleed.
I'm sorry.
the vibrations are a hum. good bye again.
This is us. this is how we follow through.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

writing and bad magic


1.

girl does bad magic. not the kind you can see but feel.
my feet hurt after a long day, it's horrid. this heat, the job ... the way the cars keep coming and going. and people. people the most.

she'll write me, not often and i heard her voice a few months back. not the first time - not the last. you never know how things would have worked out. sometimes it's a shame that all you have is now.

all you have is now. I've erased a few words on the page and there are those little rubber shavings. blow.

I've used a rubber maybe 4 or 5 times in my entire life. that's dirty. but the way it is. It feels better. you can't disagree with that?. even if you want it all in you. I haven't had all that many lovers. more lies than lovers. more lies than babies. I'm right about that. the it feeling good part. she thinks i kind of faked that i can pull out in time. it's not a lie though, i can. you should know.

the sun is beating down on the office window beside me. i closed the blinds and i can still feel the heat. i touch the plastic shades. warm. i press my hand to my face. now it feels like when we were together in your room. do you remember? heart beats, acoustic, sad music. maybe it's flushed with shame. i should have told you. I loved you.

writing and drinking makes me happy. kissing your face. making fun of hipsters. making fun of politics, road signs, warning signs. writing and a brief affair with a semi- famous actress. or artist. or cam whore, or blog mistress, or bored wife, or pregnant and horny. i don't know, using the right side of my brain? I dream. i fall in love but don't fall in love with everyone you see. okay?

i hate any kind of milk. even soy. I have a fear of elevators and often dream of tornadoes. (though never having seen a real one) i like the lime and the places you can stick it. I like sticking things in. pushing red buttons. candy is nice but i can live without ever having to wear a tie again. what is good weather for a funeral?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.

she called him at work one day and told him she'd be in town, if it was cool with him, she'd like to hook up. he was with someone now, she knew that. she was with someone too. So, he told her he'd get back with her. In the company restroom and within moments jerked off all over his hand and the toilet paper he'd been holding to keep his cum from dripping on the floor. (or shooting on the wall) He called her back and said sorry he was busy. 15 minutes later he was ready again. to much thinking. the thought of a hotel room and fucking like they'd never see each other again. He'd fuck her tenderly with anger. He sent a text hoping it wasn't to late, he wrote: Cancelled plans, just for you- baby- I'd love it to meet...
every guy is a slave to their dick, a slave to options- openings- opportunity - He easily writes this off as fate- a phone call. He thought about jerking off again, texting back: something came up, next time? I'll make it up to you. promise.
- but he let it ride. enough fucking promises. He would let it build up, the anger, sorrow, regret, all those drawn out god damned good byes. he knew just where he was going to put them.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

make me your bruise

I told you to wait until after the rain stopped and then let's meet in the back- yard. we took off our shoes so that we could feel the wet grass under our feet. i took your hand and you thought looking back now, this is bittersweet, sad, this is like some kind of dark poetry in a pale blue light. make me your bruise, a sigh in a warm rain, bleeding. It's bullshit. It's bad fiction.

the fact that we had to wait at all or that i could ever wait. that once could ever be enough. that i would forget any of this. we rode our bikes in the rain, it was warm as blood and everything seemed rusted. the rains come and then the storms. this is our snow: thunder, leaves falling, a break in the sky, summer down pours and lightning.

I told you if it ever got to hard. I told you to tell me your secrets and if it was hurting bad enough I would take you away. I could make you safe from them.

your bike was pink with white streamers and mine was green. banana seat, chrome sissy bar, playing cards between the spokes held in place by clothes pins. Jokers and and aces wild, the Queen of hearts for you, your favorite and the king of diamonds, mine. Our tires rubbed and bumped when we got to close to each other, racket from the cards coming down the street like engines, like machine gun fire. Your hair wet and stringy in your face like spilled ink.


where was it that you showed me your bruises? was it in the woods , was it at your house in your room?. Why was no one ever home? and tell me again where he touches you at night.
we laid down in the bathtub together when the storm came in. I was caught over your house and couldn't get home. the phone didn't work, no t.v. We thought the roof would come off, we thought the walls would cave in. Or was it that you wanted close to me?

I got in first, cold white porcelain touching my back through shirt and then you on top. The thunder made you scared and edgy. your shoulders were small, bony and then i saw the bruises. you shifted your weight, like a whisper and said it would feel better if you moved like this and it did. lighting. crash of thunder. An ACDC song in my head. closer now and the wind, and my promise.

show me where the gun is. I'll do it. So he'll never hurt you again. she only heard the rain hitting the tin roof of the old shed out back.drowning my hearts desire. Bang- bang- bang- bang. she found the spot where shadows hide inside of me. she pressed herself into it, moving, faster and then faster. slow and then slower. a sigh, the warm rain bleeding. she was crying. weeping softly i thought. but now I'm not so sure.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

I'm taking it all away from you


thought i'd spend the entire day reading. away from the phone. away from the t.v. and Internet. away from work and people and cars and falling leaves. locked down in a motel room with dirty sheets and pabst blue ribbon. stare at the ceiling and listen to the pounding in my skull for awhile. let it all settle here. settle me.

i thought i wouldn't have to write. what's it worth when I no longer have the words to make her
stay. she doesn't come here anyway.
no gifts. no kisses. no soft
refrain.
no more thoughts.


Do you know what i miss most about your skin?
it's things i can tell you but would rather feel. how it was against yours.
mine against yours. and me or you on top.
doesn't matter,
how much you don't move or how violently.
and if you're wondering.
I touch your hair and whisper yes, i still like you.

skin familiar
vanilla and clove with a touch of dew and sunshine.
fragile and bruised.
blood and saltwater.

she'd press her ear to my chest and if she can remember my heart beat. how it felt. the quiet sound, when it was still. She turns music off when we get tired. i like the cool darkness and silence of her room. breathing. her eyes closed, mine open. I watched her sleep.

so still like the moon in the sky. like the stars. But it only looks still, it's an illusion. it moves. we move. the earth, the dogs, the cats, you, me, the baby. everyone.


the record spins in the night.
and my mind is the needle stuck in the groove that is
you.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

When you call my name it's like a little prayer

At catholic school, a priest would come around to each class and rub a cross of ash on our heads.
i'd walk around the rest of the day on my high horse feeling both holy and dirty. It doesn't work if you wipe it off or something, that's what becky said and she had hers so i had mine too.

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return"

The priest says this before he presses his thumb to your forehead. As if i needed to be reminded about death. I had trouble sleeping as it was, night after night instead: flashlight and comic book, listening to crickets in silence, country music on a static filled radio station, and my favorite- face down rubbing myself into the mattress.

It's why i did the bad things i did. The cursing, the searching for dirty magazines in the woods, the touching myself. I was a kid but i had to be reminded I was this ash on my head and in the end I'm going to be dust. when was this end? tonight? tomorrow? So, I rubbed myself and hard and if it was a sin it didn't feel like it. It couldn't be. I wasn't dead. I wasn't dust. I was sweating and thinking about girls and the way their bodies must feel and i couldn't wait to.

All that ash and stained-glass settled in and now it reminds me of short skirts and panties and the mother mary is pale and beautiful.

In the beginning of lent we were supposed to give something up that we liked very much. There is this excitement at school because everyone is trying hard to be good and you know it makes things worse. It was always between ash Wednesday and Easter things got interesting for me. It was as if every temptation was thrown at me or maybe i was just more aware of them. It was when girls started to notice me.

Becky shows me her days of the week panties, it starts on Thursday. blue. I never see Saturday, but i do Sunday. white. my favorite pair being Monday. pink.

Bunnies and eggs played a mixed up part I'm sure, but it started with the ash. The dirt that was dust and the dust that I'm to become.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

the best luck i had was you

"The ladies that I used to know; And, well some they wish me well; and some became my enemies; and some I told to go to hell; and some still haunt me in my dreams…. some still haunt me in my dreams”


It's beautiful cool and blue and dusk and then night - today is to amazing to waste. I wanted to do something before everything starts. I'm married on Friday. Halloween and oh, by the way she believes in me just how i am, just how I'm going to be. how i write it and all the in between. just how- everything.
So, I do and she does and then when I may, I'm going to kiss her hard on the mouth because that's how i do it. when i say my wife, it could have never been anyone but her. the others ran from me, didn't understand me, never trusted me, actually believed id throw the blanket away that kept us warm. didn't i tell you i wouldn't throw anything i love away- ? it wasn't a test. I just wanted to know. I want to know the girl who lays beside me, the girl i live and die for, who has my name, who wears my ring, is as much a junkie for me as I am for her.


The room key- it's like a credit card only it has a Domino's pizza ad on it. I didn't come here and mean for it to remind me of her. I'm in a different time and place and yet things are similar. Maybe i don't know where i am or if this is me or why i bothered to come here at all.

I know why. I saw this motel while driving to work and thought it would be fun to get a room. I could open the windows and let the cool air inside, play music and jump on the bed alone. totally alone and never really alone.

we were in a room like this, the bed faces the same wall. It's noisy outside and there are cheap lamps on cheap night stands, and a bed spread pattern right out of the 70's. I hate thinking that's all we ever were. a chemical romance. fighting and sleep overs. but something like that spark - something about the fit - you can't blame me for wanting more. In my head it's always so much more. I've told myself more lies than anyone ever could.

I won't lie to you now, I've been here before. I come here to write sometimes. There is a court-yard and a pool. It's built next to the train-station. A Denny's out front, drug deals in the back.
There was a girl i used to meet here and she would lug her record player and speakers up a flight of stairs to the room. She brought The Smiths and some others. I hadn't heard vinyl since high school. she rode me to side-one of Louder Than Bombs. It's weird that she felt best on top. On top girl- that's how I remember her.
I just thought of something, how do you not write about sex when you're in a motel room?

I left the room and walked to the train station. I'm by the tracks waiting for trains. i love the sound of bells and whistles and the thunder shaking steel. people coming and going - leaving.
I'd say I'm leaving this all behind me, but I'm not.
my ink changed me and she changed me but not the ring. I'll still have my addictions and she'll still understand. the silence may be less deafening.

a train pulls in on the other side of the tracks. when it stops it hisses and people get off and some get on and some leave and never come back. I used to pick her up and take her back, she used to come and go and then one day she never came back. like you, she will never come back.


i hate waiting for anything alone. so I don't. there are some things i can't do: i could never sleep alone again. I could never not miss her, not her, but the feeling of that something out of reach. that unbalanced knowing she is somewhere out there. knowing I'll never feel the heat of her skin pressed to mine again. yet the existing possibility of such, however unreal is so fucking inspiring and keeps me word filled and teary eyed with emotion. now maybe you understand? there are no real stone walls keeping us away, just the slightest change of heart. How it feels loving her and hurting after. knowing all along i am for someone else.

a brisk wind cuts across the tracks into my face. The cold air makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. (another ghost?) I have my hoody on over the shirt i wore when i first met her. my hand is starting to hurt from writing this. A few people are waiting on benches. I'm on the wrong side. I just figured out the train doesn't run on this side today. I could do what i always do and wait for something that will never arrive. Today is to amazing to waste. I do something, the something i came to do, I get up close my notebook and leave.

Friday, October 24, 2008

i like your lips sticky , sparkly and sweet

-were only liars but were the best at it-

Once, when i believed in tarot, a lady laid my cards out on a dark wood table. I touched each one with my finger-tip. She told me she saw death by a jealous husband. I asked, "mine or his?"


I sent a text message to random numbers in my phone today. A mass texting. did you think it was to the wrong person? what it said, did it make sense? It's not supposed to. She used to send me messages like that. They didn't make any sense so i assumed weren't sent for me, but i knew they were. you know what i mean when i say - There are no accidents.

I'd send back a frantic WRONG PERSON, press enter - wait
wait. wait. for the lie. wait. wait. for anything. wait. wait.
then id look at my display screen again and wonder what the fuck "good i need it" meant.
No reply. No reply.
she wouldn't say. silly games. that's what she taught me. she's going to put you in your place the same way.

now i find myself doing it sometimes just to see. It's like my word tourettes. I can't help it, I have to. I have to say that i miss you. I have to tell you over and over that everything is fine. I have to separate truth from fiction and can you guess which this is?

You look better in my t-shirts than you do in his. (truth)


It doesn't mean i don't love you, the whole text thing. Now you know if it flashed and buzzed and you read it and it didn't make sense. I sent you something i sent to everyone. you re not so special. Then again, neither am I.


- I shouldn't, but i do -

Thursday, October 2, 2008

spiced cake and pumpkin guts


Dinner and a movie:

the wine will be like blood tonight.
For dinner: pasta and a homemade spicy Sicilian sauce, vegetarian meatballs.
she'd tell you I'm a decent cook, with my best being food on the grill. I can do pastas too, and not just because of an Italian last name. or maybe.

and I've tasted some of the best wines in the valley. I've kissed lips, touched skin, shared laughs with the finest of women. that's not bragging it's just to show you how very lucky I am. brown eyes, green eyes, blue.
I want you to know this because i know this. she went and shared parts of herself with me and i probably can't forget it, i probably will never escape it. You become one of the ghosts i talk too, that i write about, and I'm going to miss you as much as you do me.

Ive watched blood flowing from her vein as if some kind of test.
i am constantly passing and failing her. my
resistance so often being futile. i pull my car over to the side of a highway and think about you on top of me. there is a pumpkin patch just over the hill. there are no tears , only leaves, bright orange and falling. October. month of my birth. month of witches.

she is better cooking breakfast than dinner. That's why i asked her to stay the night so often.
she sleeps to my right, soundly with soft shallow breaths. she'll let you touch her in the night. your chest to her back. her shoulders get cold. she likes the blankets pulled up. but, who doesn't and isn't this exactly you too?

it's not all magic. the movies, music, books and our little inside jokes. not even the scents or saying "baby" or adding "bear" to the end of your name. it's not so you remember me. time is both beautiful and cruel that way. you won't. I know that too.

this isn't a trick
this is what people do to win your heart. to steal your soul. to keep you. ruin you.
letters in the middle of October become secrets and wishes and candy. Tell me. What is sweeter than that?

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

promise i don't have to worry

it took some time to get over each other, which really meant they were playing bows and arrows in different parts of the woods. the sharp edges filed down, the distance and silence.
so they wouldn't get hurt.
which meant: Yes, time, but also forgiveness.
which meant: learning closure has nothing to do with moving on, but more with going beyond.

the underlying love and
hate towards each other faded into a strange friendship that developed years later.
despite their age difference they still shared what can only be explained as chemical connection.
a twisted attraction both dangerous and troubling. A devils trick or a little joke played by god. but, something either could do much about. by the end it never really mattered.
now, he is good advice and warm skin.
she is
his sunshine in the distance.


someone hurts you that bad. that good.
in a strange way you can do nothing more than admire them.
how many times in this short life will you get to feel
the moon light
kiss-
like electric
over your skin?
to him, that was her.

A beginning with
no end.
and to her he's
become
the inescapable truth
the eventual
choice of silence
and
living
with the ghosts of his
words

Friday, September 12, 2008

shedding our summer skin

ninety three fifty :

that's what the marriage license cost. cash. she held his hand. they both were there, they must have been. signing names and writing down addresses. excited. my name.
your name
her name
his name
3 day wait and good for 60 days.
i asked the lady behind the glass if i could keep the pen
so i could write this

is this a court house or a prison? when i went through the metal detectors they told me they would need to keep my knife. Security wrote down my name and then slipped the knife into a manila envelope. Gave me a pick-up ticket for later. Is it so strange someone carrying a pocket knife these days? My girl seemed to think it was cute. My Daddy carries a knife? she says sounding all surprised.
Oh, the mystery of me is only just unfolding. I tell her.

I carry one that belonged to my grand father. when i was little my Dad and his Dad and my Mothers Father also, they all carried pocket knives. I wanted one so bad. When you are bigger. is what they say to a 7 year old who asks.
So October comes and I get one for my 10th birthday. I felt all grown up and put it under my pillow every night when I went to sleep. I've long since lost it. I've lost many knives since then. to irresponsible - to careless. I've lost many fine things that way. but, I'm older and I haven't lost this knife. I won't lose this girl.

While waiting for our number to be called I asked her what was it like her first time? i meant her first kiss. was it like this?
was it like how i did it or better? was it like ..... did you know
that the best thing you could do right now is run away?

and miss out on this? she moves her hands as to introduce me to an invisible crowd.
but the mystery of you is just unfolding. I don't detect a smile and the way she says this scares me a little so that i like it. Like she knows something i don't. Like she knows where i was before last Halloween. The best thing I could do is run away. But I don't. ninety three fifty and quiet as a church mouse. We raise our right hands and I quietly swear to the truth about something. I'm thinking about not forgetting to get my knife back. I finally speak up and ask the lady for the pen so i can write this.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

what if.......

At summers end:
The wedding i attended, the dinner, the dance, summer, fucking september. the cake was fine. the cake it's smashed all over her face. but fine. happy. i kept hearing that word.
Happy
.
all smiles and glasses tipped back. I drank wine.
There was a girl who wanted to dance with me. She had tattoos and a red ruby ring.
the bride she held out a silk bag for money gifts. i slipped in my money, my complaints, a cigarette butt and advice.
I could see the moon from the window. traces of lip-gloss glitter on my shirt.
the glimmer and shine like stars.
I try holding these moments and not letting them slip away. Not letting her slip away.
but things change, they end, they begin
and back again
my glass is empty
open bar
full again. this is life and love
and you have to have been in love
to write poetry.
so I write words down on a paper napkin and
hand it to ruby ring girl. a smile. her hand on the back of my arm.
the bride is months away from having the baby
this time me
the one who
slips away


Fall: We come here to visit each other and tell each other lies. or maybe it's them we tell the lies to. maybe things we write seem more believable than what we speak. Maybe I can write that I let you visit and you did. Or maybe you can say you've seen my bed or pet my dog.
You told me that i was your one true love.
I'll make you feel good if you do me. it's not much different than before. telling you that you're pretty, adding bear to the end of your first name.

When she'd come over and stay up late. Curled up on the couch writing in her notebook in black ink. We had this kind of sad-love soundtrack always playing in the background. This sort of waiting around for our big crash and burn. She'd bite the cap of the pen, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. The soundtrack. It was so obvious. so obvious. She'd come over and she'd say that she'd stay forever. fall asleep holding me, after we fucked. once she woke me up sucking my dick. She never wrote that down. I didn't either. since when are secrets stories? that's what she'd tell me.

she signs her name with my last name.
that makes her more mine than yours.
If you find me I'm yours in a heart beat.
the illusion of our lonely is
now,
an us and a we.
my heart, god willing
it will stop beating before hers.
she is much younger than I.
and days passing
we visit each other
my world
Alive.
because of you.

photo credits:
Aytnena
the selby
m0thyyku
heliumglow

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

brighter lights


This was our honeymoon in Vegas. Even after a 6 1\2 hour flight she wasn't going to stay a hotel room for very long. She wore a pretty summer dress and matching panties underneath. colored hearts, same as the heart-shaped buttons on her dress.

we drank , played black jack and pulled slots into the night. Yes, there were neon lights, the bells and whistles, white tigers and Elvis's. There were brides and grooms and shrimp cocktails all over the place. If you threw up skittles on the gaudy casino rug you couldn't have telled. but that's what you stay for, not to sit in your room make slow love to your wife. You got all of forever to do that. At least that's what she told me.

You do it Vegas style baby.., she said slurring her words. So later on we made a made sex tape in the back of a cab. I tipped the driver\camera man 50 bucks, not just for his steady camera hand, but as compensation for having to put up with her shrill coyote howls and asking him to put fingers in her mouth while i was pounding her from behind. who knows where her mouth has been?


I lost her on the strip sometime in the night and she was married to someone else by early dawn. she said she was sorry and pretty sure it wasn't legal or it was, but only in Vegas.

i hit a thousand dollar triple jackpot on my way to the airport. I cashed out, left the casino and took one last drag on my cigarette. Inhaling with it the dry desert heat. I needed to get back to my own heat, the heat I'm familiar with, used to, back in South Florida. The way things work around here is we tell it like it is unless you tell me otherwise. we have no secrets.

So what?It's not like she was a serial killer. I felt the fat wad of crumpled money bulging in my front pocket. Was it a hard-on or the 3 g's that i won?. I reached inside and felt deep until i hit bottom. I pulled out a little heart shaped button.

Oh lordie, that girl look goooooood in that summer dress. Wow. 3 grand!. my little polygamist wife is gonna be so happy. I popped the button in my mouth and swallowed it like a red skittle. I called it a wash and boarded the plane.

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

the fear you won't fall


Fireflies

Tonight my yard is full of fireflies--a glitterfest of green, blinking by hundreds,
exactly like last year, when she and I
drove out into the Missouri countryside
to talk about our marriage. It was thick
with greenery. The air was hot and thick,
and we had decided to try and stay together,
though by first light she'd changed her mind again,
and, to be honest, our eleventh hour hope and promise lacked the weight of truth.
We wandered off the rocky dirt roadover weeds and brambles, through branches
and spiderwebs, and pressed into a clearing,
and it was like a pocket in the darkness that surrounded us--the misty night back
lit with thousands of glittering fireflies
bettering the stars. It was a mating dance,
and we gazed into a sputtering green sea of desire--such irresistible beckoning.
Ours was, too--a death-dance of mating,
a slower, indecisive tarantella,
and she asked me never to write about this,
but I knew then that I had nothing to lose,
that at that moment there was nothing I wanted
more than to write about the fireflies.

by Richard Newman


you punch like a girl:

my old live journal heliumglow deleted. without much fanfare. without tears. just on a whim really. no sparklers or fourth of July. i lie that I am sometimes not missing her. and she was the reason. for it. I clicked to read my "friends" journals. clicked and its all just cold and empty. maybe they will find me. maybe they won't and it doesn't matter all that much any way. do or don't. that's what I am always trying to tell her. so with an urgency i get to trying to put it all down. and I started to write her name. but it wasn't funny anymore. it wasn't sad either. It wasn't relate able to my life now. it wasn't a lesson learned or time served. It was fake and desolate, it was lying and redundant. it was saying it- to say it. and you deservedly missing me. me, I am somewhere out there too.

a life time ago. so it seems. and i tell myself- the dirty is gone from there.............

to here.

Ive fallen in love, over merely her beauty. have you? I think everyone has. who's to say if its right or wrong. what is love? someone who treats you good. do i not? have i not? this has always been my way of saying it. and it's funny, how it's never quite enough. I guess there is always that question. is it even real.

beauty

it is nothing but something to look at. it is a trick to make you love me. to make me love you. but what of the skin and bones and blood? what if she bled for you. what if she made you feel something, something that you would never never feel again. would you want it back. Is that love? just be happy you had it. just be happy.

you

you
never looked back

I'm not so great:

i stayed over. the first time. and i knew. I knew it right off. I looked over at her sleeping and I knew i was so utterly fucked with smitten. so fucked with a crush, with a sickness. I'd reach out and touch her skin. my warm hand on her cold shoulder and Id warm it. pull the blanket up over her. I would be seriously destroyed. i wasn't acting like myself. but maybe i didn't know me. I wanted to weep. I went to the bathroom just across the hall. trying to be quiet. trying to let the angel sleep. across the tile floor bare-foot. cold. in the bathroom i looked at myself. I wondered how she could let someone like me even fuck her. but i did. we did. in the mirror my eyes watery. hair tussled. I knew i had to do something. She wasn't so great. i had to tell myself that, so i wouldn't get hurt. I saw her tooth-brush in a pink cup on the sink. I saw her tongue scrapper beside it. This was it. my only hope. I took it out and put it under my nose. id have to remember this.

and When she finally told me goodbye. that it was done. over. that I wasn't the one. I wasn't even close to it. i put myself back there in the bathroom. just after the night of sweat and words and kisses. after the sleeping next to her skin that smelled of vanilla. there in the bathroom with that foul fucked up smell of her dirty mouth under my nose.