Friday, August 5, 2011

cgs/y i wish you were here

this time, the time in between, is not my favorite, my head starting to butt against itself inside its skull, the way mountains make blessings from pears, the way the sun makes pears into liquid, that just might, if one were prone to these sorts of things, melt inside a backpack on the back of a motorcycle so that by the time one got to rest, it would be sticky all over the seat and all over the hands, and that might remind one, if one were inclined toward such thoughts, of a night in a hotel when things started to stop making sense.

everybody wants a perfect lover, and those who have been on long roads understand this better than anyone else, because time melts the things of the ego, and makes the things that we think we need to demand start to go away between one turn and another.  i don't want to think this all has something to do with age, but maybe i do know some things about love, and maybe i know things that i was hoping i could tell you, so that you wouldn't have to learn the hard way, where lovers are revealed as strangers when you first notice that they have one hand on your heart and the other hand looking through your purse.  don't worry, he won't see those messages you keep, don't worry, she won't understand why you smile when you twitch like that, don't worry, these secrets are safe between us.

this is august 5th, and it's not a day that anyone needs to remember as anything remarkable, but it's as strong for me as any other day like it, like may 17th, and if there is ever a time when they name a town after me, they will have streets named for these dates, because they might seem like important moments in the mexican revolution, but they're only marking some small but significant loss.  only significant because the people involved no longer speak to each other, and if we knew that at the beginning, i wonder if we would have ever started.  it's a tricky road, and i'm not sure i'd ever want to take it again with someone that i really cared for.  makes it hard to go down that road, or makes it hard to care.  for now, i'm just keeping that road closed until i can get these things off my chest.

i would love to be in the city, the city where we found our secrets at the edges of the sea, and not hear your name in any circles, but it comes up here and there. it would reveal too much or something to say that i don't look for you in every white car that passes, because i don't look for you any more, and whenever i see a white car, i tell myself that i'm better now because i'm not looking for you in that car, and the person in the car is a man and has blond hair under a golf cap, not you, and i am healthy.

listen: this is a better start.

i am driving a motorcycle from phoenix to san diego.  somewhere close to mohawk valley, i understand that i know this, i know this way very well, i've done this before.  there's something that feels good about the way my back is hurting, and the pull of the wind against my head inside my helmet that moves my earphones to a slightly painful place.  i chew on my lip ring to get a little shot of an ache that reminds me of the way her lips pulled on my lips, when she had that look in her eye that meant she wanted to move into something just a little darker.

my head is clear, though, and remembering things that happened don't fill this empty space with an empty longing for something i don't want to repeat here, not now, not yet anyway, remembering these things is like visiting rooms that i like, and i can open the doors and see the things that sparkled in the dark there.

the hotel room where things fell apart, not because we realized it was over because there was no more love there, but because a silly little boy was making promises to treat you badly was immanent, and you had to leave after one last thing that lasted for another sixteen hours, the hotel room becomes slowly filled with dogs, yellow dogs and black dogs and speckled dogs that place their faces too close when you are speaking, and there are pieces of metal in my mouth, things that i realize are things that are part of you, your metal is coming off in my mouth.  and we don't have to go, and nothing is wrong, and no one is leaving, but there's a certain springtimey sunshiney promise in the air that you will leave as soon as things turn good.  the same hotel room is now filling with roommates who have questions about the speakers, the same hotel room is filled up with actors speaking things that sounded like something else, the same hotel room now has a new couch in the front room and there are spirits everywhere who are working to make things happen in the world, and spinning me out of one room into many, all of them as wet as the sea and as salty as your skin.

i see the empty smiles and hear the desperate whispers in the dark, someone is paying attention to someone, and it's nice to be heard in the dark, in the middle of a dark room when the world outside is too bright and couldn't care less.  i see the weight of a hundred lovers pressing against the clothes on the floor, pressed by phantoms into a black hole that gravity will never reach.  i hear the sounds that are too much for the walls, and insist on boring through them to announce something that was once wounded is now healed.  i also see the small specks of light in the corners of eyes, the ones that recognize each other, after this lifetime, after that lifetime, here you are, i thought i recognized you, and here you are again.

all i have room for in my pockets, my pockets wet with melted fruit, are those same specks, and i take those with me, and play with them between my lips and teeth, making them spark against the ring in my lip, and i think about the ocean ahead, and the ocean about to inhabit another head, and how this all relates to some kind of movement, and how i thought i had to learn how to hate in order to close the door, but i learned some secrets here, in this room when you were sleeping, i learned some secrets, and my favorite one is the one that tells me i still love you, i am still in love with you, and i can take this with me, and it's won't make me too heavy to keep moving toward the ocean, whose secrets will unlock me utterly, the way we unlock each other, and maybe it's the same kind of love.  

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I too am hunted/haunted there is a rusted can on my companions chair this morning when did that get here ? tearing curtains from the wet linens and letting the fibers float away only to settle on the dog and later to my lungs part of me lies in a hospital in san diego having alterations while in phx my root chakra is choked with piriformis sympathies

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