that didn't go so well, i thought, the dog didn't sleep at all, is what i was thinking, and she kept me up all night and by the morning i was a mess. we do what we always do, we collected our pay and figured out how to make things run by taping the wires back together, and then we ate candy and salads and watched old comedies and thought about all of this all too well. too sharp, i'm not sleeping anymore and growing sharp again, and don't have time for the things that i could make time for when there was time enough to sleep. my floors are hard to walk on for all the open books, and it might look as though i'm teaching the dog to read. but the dog's not here, we sent her away for the night so we could sleep a little better than the night before, and the moon is deciding to cool. just as we predicted with our magic and moon maps. there's an order to all of this. i remember, because i'm so sharp these days.
except, i do get the sense that the performance of myself is becoming exhausting for everyone, manic and funny in crowds, and manic and morose on my own, taking the opportunity to swallow the heaviness of the air here. this time of year, you know how it is. and meanwhile, everyone wants a healing again, and dancers are coming out of the woodwork with plates of food, and it should be the best dinner party anyone ever had. but i never was good at knowing how to dress for these things, always a little too bright or a little too much understatement, and there are very few who tell me that i look more relaxed these days.
so there's this. i caught a glimpse of it a long time ago, and i sometimes held onto the shape and color, but it always went away because i didn't take the time to swallow it whole, not like this time, and this time was a monster stomach ache that lasted for days, and when i woke up, i found myself here writing this. having grown too fond of the dogs always at the door, i had to learn the hard way that they don't stay away forever if you lock them out for just one night, and in the end, there's always more where that came from (no end, this is impossible, an easy puzzle to solve but hard enough to live). distinctly, there are three living inside me these days and they change faces fast enough that i don't know when they come or when they go, but the one thing they have in common is that they all seem unable to say their feelings honestly in the moment when it matters, and later one comes clawing after, and later one comes to the floor to sleep at my feet, and later one narrates me in a way that i recognize it as something that i had hoped to be but never thought i could in this life.
there's more dark red these days, and every kind of love is fraught with its own kind of stickiness. so i keep repeating, just give me one night, i need to sort these clothes back out again, they all got tangled up in the wash, and i need to work through this knot, it's half covered in disappointment about the politics of women's bodies, and half entranced in a conversation over a cappuccino at the train station, where the metro might take us farther away from each other than we could imagine, or closer to the next destination that seems packed with a new adventure. i have these things in my blood that don't go to sleep, they never go to sleep, and when i don't sleep, i catch more than glimpses of their robes, i catch the taste of blood in my teeth and this does something else to my blood, and the rest of course is a secret. but. i need one more night, because these clothes are on the margin of art and life, and in truth, i am much too smart to wish for the sentimental things, like wishing that something would come true for a change, or like wishing this wasn't another scene with the slow kids at high school lockers wondering if the other one was going to make a move, or if it's time to go to the mall and play video games.
i need one more night to work these things out, wishing the clothes would untangle themselves on their own. but they won't. they need tireless hands with hairless fingers to play on the knots and make wishes before cutting them apart. just one more night, with the same dog at my feet, and a moon that just won't shut up, and an ocean that still makes me grow still, but never still enough to sleep. i need one more night before i open the door. you all out there, you can just wait.
except, i do get the sense that the performance of myself is becoming exhausting for everyone, manic and funny in crowds, and manic and morose on my own, taking the opportunity to swallow the heaviness of the air here. this time of year, you know how it is. and meanwhile, everyone wants a healing again, and dancers are coming out of the woodwork with plates of food, and it should be the best dinner party anyone ever had. but i never was good at knowing how to dress for these things, always a little too bright or a little too much understatement, and there are very few who tell me that i look more relaxed these days.
so there's this. i caught a glimpse of it a long time ago, and i sometimes held onto the shape and color, but it always went away because i didn't take the time to swallow it whole, not like this time, and this time was a monster stomach ache that lasted for days, and when i woke up, i found myself here writing this. having grown too fond of the dogs always at the door, i had to learn the hard way that they don't stay away forever if you lock them out for just one night, and in the end, there's always more where that came from (no end, this is impossible, an easy puzzle to solve but hard enough to live). distinctly, there are three living inside me these days and they change faces fast enough that i don't know when they come or when they go, but the one thing they have in common is that they all seem unable to say their feelings honestly in the moment when it matters, and later one comes clawing after, and later one comes to the floor to sleep at my feet, and later one narrates me in a way that i recognize it as something that i had hoped to be but never thought i could in this life.
there's more dark red these days, and every kind of love is fraught with its own kind of stickiness. so i keep repeating, just give me one night, i need to sort these clothes back out again, they all got tangled up in the wash, and i need to work through this knot, it's half covered in disappointment about the politics of women's bodies, and half entranced in a conversation over a cappuccino at the train station, where the metro might take us farther away from each other than we could imagine, or closer to the next destination that seems packed with a new adventure. i have these things in my blood that don't go to sleep, they never go to sleep, and when i don't sleep, i catch more than glimpses of their robes, i catch the taste of blood in my teeth and this does something else to my blood, and the rest of course is a secret. but. i need one more night, because these clothes are on the margin of art and life, and in truth, i am much too smart to wish for the sentimental things, like wishing that something would come true for a change, or like wishing this wasn't another scene with the slow kids at high school lockers wondering if the other one was going to make a move, or if it's time to go to the mall and play video games.
i need one more night to work these things out, wishing the clothes would untangle themselves on their own. but they won't. they need tireless hands with hairless fingers to play on the knots and make wishes before cutting them apart. just one more night, with the same dog at my feet, and a moon that just won't shut up, and an ocean that still makes me grow still, but never still enough to sleep. i need one more night before i open the door. you all out there, you can just wait.
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