What to say? (to self)

I'm imploding- afraid to go to sleep because I don't want to wake up into tomorrow.  Each day delivers new death notices, forebodings, warnings, fears; all of which I have to sign for.  I watch the lives we've built out of sandstone slowly disintegrate.  Whiplash of wind, water-boarding rain drops.  It gets harder to breathe; my chest is heavy, my stomach sick.

This week was the pits.  We ended up buying platters from Crate & Barrel in preparation for Thanksgiving.  I hated them; they are white, plain, dull- like my job, like me; I couldn't stand the sight of them.  I was surprised at my own reaction, glaring at the platters with tempestuous rage.  I wanted to shatter them, to see them crack into thousands of sharp bits, to hear them separate into the same brokenness as me.  Crate & Barrel's dinnerware is overpriced and boring- I said that we could buy the same things, only with more flair and personality from anywhere else, Target, Ikea, World Market.  Vowing to go to Target this weekend and getting some better ones myself, I went with my friend, C; he drove me in a Zip car on the errands.  We walked around Target, and walked around, and walked around aisles like a hall of mirrors; the platters and cutlery were exactly the same as Crate & Barrel's; yes, it was a tad cheaper, but simply white all the same.  The only pieces with color and life were unfortunately marked with giant snowflakes or Christmas trees.  Making the most out of the trip, I decided to buy a few odd items that we still needed: a butter dish, a salad bowl.

There was a sale on some nice dinnerware, combinations of dishes, bowls and coffee mugs; I actually really liked it, and we needed a set of 8 for Thanksgiving.  I didn't buy them though, as I wanted to sleep on it, and have G come back with me to see them for himself.  So we did, today.  The southbound El was inoperable, so we took a bus down to Target.  We headed for the dishes, and the sale was gone.  The dishes still sat there, smiling at me; but they were no longer on sale.  My stomach popped.  I slumped.  All that way for the one thing, and it flitted off.

It's not about the platters, really.  It's about that great big god in the sky making a joke of me.  Poking me with that same finger he stretched out to Adam and then pulling it back to a place I'm unable to grasp or retaliate, god laughs in my ringing earaches and that looming quiet.

Old Poem

Found this old poem of mine-

BODIES OF WATER

How you were not there,

and he and I managed to slosh

around, drunk, heavy limbed

into play – into each other;

it numbed me,

like a heavy dose of Novocain,

though I sensed it, the weight

of water as it separates

from clouds, is pulled down,

scattered; I remembered you

in pitter-patter patterns

on cold, hard pavement,

despite being compromised-

you flushed in dark, and he

and I pouring ourselves,

tongues into cupped mouths;

your dammed breathing by sleep

apnea, and our sucking

air in greedily through teeth;

I wanted to wake you, to be,

and yet I was afraid of the thunder

and how it might rouse you;

he asked, properly, “May I

fuck you?” but I told him no;

one bead of sweat collected

at my nose’s tip, and it dripped-

these bodies of fifty-seven

percent water spill out;

I couldn’t tell you where that drop

of me went, but perhaps you do

for in my mind, my dear,

you might as well have been there.

Fracture of Flora

Misstep, unlike an ankle twisted 'round
itself or the uneven sidewalk slip
-ping of potholed cement, which one was it
that planted and set this crack in motion?

Truncation, a regret once it's grown
into a duet, branching through shins
split open; O, your mouth mussitates cold
words after your breathing has been broken.

A brambly fissure thrives within legs
disallowed necessary rest, while bur
-ning smells in your flared nostrils; stress has flow
-ered into your chest, bouquets of roses.

BLISTERING

You've just hung curtains up; you promised me
their wrinkles would fall out, it'd be alright

despite their shadowed, glaring squints.  Curtains
to keep me shielded, free me to walk

whichever way I see fit; naked, wet
straight out of a bath and to the bedroom

where the curtains are permanently drawn
like the bruises on my arms, like magic

marker.  We hide in this dark like a foot
in a shoe; we're two toes pressed against one

another.  Curtains protect outsiders
from witnessing this friction, blistering

to cushion damage done to nerve endings.
They look lovely.  We'll see if tomorrow

pops and unfolds these furrows, opens eyes
that are still shut close, forcibly, too tightly.