Driving through dark night
Sun bursts over horizon!
No, it's just a truck.
Border Patrol looks
for aliens in the night;
But so does Roswell.
Tarmac flows below
Pitch black flies above, and I
have miles to go.
I don't want
your damn ticket
officer
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
The Economist
It is a hundred years ago today and you're smiling at me like there is nothing but this moment. And maybe there is nothing else. All the memories could be dreams, and the dreams could be memories waiting to happen. You're still smiling at me and the sun is warm on my skin. I look up at the clear blue sky and I see only stars as the dream comes on...
Floating on my back in the inky expanse of sea. The constellations reflected in my eyes are Coyote and Father Hare -- sly wisdom and fear. There are horses swimming towards me out of the darkness, their hooves churning the water in a frothy roar. Horses never tire. I lie there with the world on my back and the stars falling into my eyes and I hear the water ceaselessly churning...
Your voice brings the sun back on my skin. Birdsong replaces roaring waters and we're back in this moment again. This moment that never ends. Voices are a strange thing. The memory of a voice doesn't sound like anything, and the dream of a touch feels only like emptiness.
If you want this moment from me, you're going to have to take it. The memory will be what you pay for it. A poor currency, memories. I'm rich with what I can't spend, and though this moment never ends it's always changing. Changing hands, changing scenes, the cost waxing and waning so that we must always be on the alert, never slipping into dreams. That's what this costs, this sun and this smile, I paid for it with a dream of horses.
Floating on my back in the inky expanse of sea. The constellations reflected in my eyes are Coyote and Father Hare -- sly wisdom and fear. There are horses swimming towards me out of the darkness, their hooves churning the water in a frothy roar. Horses never tire. I lie there with the world on my back and the stars falling into my eyes and I hear the water ceaselessly churning...
Your voice brings the sun back on my skin. Birdsong replaces roaring waters and we're back in this moment again. This moment that never ends. Voices are a strange thing. The memory of a voice doesn't sound like anything, and the dream of a touch feels only like emptiness.
If you want this moment from me, you're going to have to take it. The memory will be what you pay for it. A poor currency, memories. I'm rich with what I can't spend, and though this moment never ends it's always changing. Changing hands, changing scenes, the cost waxing and waning so that we must always be on the alert, never slipping into dreams. That's what this costs, this sun and this smile, I paid for it with a dream of horses.
My Death Equals Your Death Equals My Death
Yes, I died for you. I died for you and to you and with you nearby. I gave you that death because I thought it would set us free. But my death seeped into your soul and you said it was too much, too heavy. Your heart grew flaccid and your lungs hardened and you stopped bothering to move the blood in your veins. I screamed at you from the underworld that you had no right to play dead, that I had given you my life and that was my choice and you were a weakling to let it destroy you. You mumbled agreement and smiled but refused to breathe.
So I had to be reborn. Had to resurrect myself and come back to you. I came back to shake you awake, demand explanations, wait for apologies. To stick pins in your arms and pry your eyelids open. When I found you there were pills and ashes everywhere. There was the stench of alcohol and the cops lurked outside like ravenous wolves while I shook you shook you shook you.
But you never woke up.
So I left. I left you behind and forced myself with every step to forget a little more. I rose from the ashes and I keep my scars well covered and there are some days when I'm able to hide them even from myself. But YOU know. Your pale blue eyes rip straight through every defence and every subterfuge until it's just you and me laying in a cold dark room while the sirens howl outside.
You had your revenge. That death of yours, it shook me shook me shook me.
We still walk this earth, you and I. And maybe we are live human beings but never when we're together. Together we're husks, gazing hungrily at what we might devour in the other. Together we gleefully tear open old wounds and pretend like schoolboys that they don't hurt. We strip down to nothing but our scars and it feels like we're almost alive again. We've got our hooks in each other and as desperately as we want to let go, we can't. The skin has grown over them and I'll rip open every old scar for you, but I won't make a new one. I won't make a new one.
So I had to be reborn. Had to resurrect myself and come back to you. I came back to shake you awake, demand explanations, wait for apologies. To stick pins in your arms and pry your eyelids open. When I found you there were pills and ashes everywhere. There was the stench of alcohol and the cops lurked outside like ravenous wolves while I shook you shook you shook you.
But you never woke up.
So I left. I left you behind and forced myself with every step to forget a little more. I rose from the ashes and I keep my scars well covered and there are some days when I'm able to hide them even from myself. But YOU know. Your pale blue eyes rip straight through every defence and every subterfuge until it's just you and me laying in a cold dark room while the sirens howl outside.
You had your revenge. That death of yours, it shook me shook me shook me.
We still walk this earth, you and I. And maybe we are live human beings but never when we're together. Together we're husks, gazing hungrily at what we might devour in the other. Together we gleefully tear open old wounds and pretend like schoolboys that they don't hurt. We strip down to nothing but our scars and it feels like we're almost alive again. We've got our hooks in each other and as desperately as we want to let go, we can't. The skin has grown over them and I'll rip open every old scar for you, but I won't make a new one. I won't make a new one.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
This Is Where We Are (Re: Happily Ever Elsinore)
"I'm proud to be trailer trash!" exclaimed the Tall Blond in the boots. "No, no," said Somebody Else's Mother, "it's not 'trailer trash'. It's 'trailer troops'!" She meant it as a joke... sort of. "My dream house is a double-wide on about 4 acres of land so's I can have my animals and not see my neighbors!" the Blond went on. "Kids used to chase me home from school and call me trailer trash but I don't care! The mobile home's paid for! So ha!"
I stood there on the new faux-wood floor and stared into the cold pellet fireplace. Pieces of animals clung to the walls in testament that men with guns can kill creatures without guns. "Really?" I wondered, "Is that really her dream? Or is it bravado watered down with misplaced pride? Or, worse, is it all she dares to dream, convinced after years of disappointment that it's all she could ever deserve?"
The Sweetest Child now ran in. She flung her arms around me and I hugged her tightly wishing I could take her away forever. It had just been discovered that her father was sexually abusing her during her weekends with him. At least, that's what her mother, the Tall Blond said. Unfortunately the Tall Blond was a compulsive liar and it was always hard to tell what was really going on. She had a good heart, but a poor mind, and if the state knew just how poor the Sweetest Child would no doubt be on her way to foster care. It's hard to choose between so many evils. When the Tall Blond first made accusations against the father, the state's form of "mediation" had been to say that the Sweetest Child should be sent back to the father's home for the weekend to, I kid you not, "see if it happens again". I wanted to cry as I held her, but the anger that ignited in my chest dried the tears before they could make their way out. And so I stood there, holding the Sweetest Child, trying to douse the fire with the mantra that "vengeance belongs to god, he will repay."
The Sweetest Child released me and ran to the New Baby squirming on the couch. The Family Friend, never to be found far from the couch, was doing that thing where she pretended to be minding the New Baby, but wasn't actually doing anything to prevent it from crying, flying, or dying. "Don't touch her!!" screeched the Tall Blond as the Sweetest Child attempted to lift her sister from the couch. The Family Friend didn't say anything. She never said anything.
I stood there as the conversation moved around me. I would look at my shoes, I would glance out the door, I would search for ways to relate. I, too, was "trailer trash", although no one had ever dared to call me that, much less chase me home from school. I had never shacked up with a man who tried to strangle me before my child's eyes, and then later attacked the child in unimaginable ways as a form of hurting me once I was beyond his reach.
"Come see the doll collection!" exclaimed the Mother and Somebody Else's Mother. I followed dutifully into the "office", a room with a computer against one wall and floor-to-ceiling shelves heaped high with all sorts of dolls on the other. The Mother had been collecting them all her life. Barbies, baby dolls, miniature victorian dolls, anything with a plastic face in a ruffled dress. I thought about how I had owned only two dolls in my entire life. One was a Korean silk doll brought back during the war by my grandfather, the other a baby doll that I was drawn to after just barely being too old for dolls anymore. I couldn't make sense of the heaps of painted cheeks and glass eyes. I walked out of the room wondering if any of them had names. Or if they all had names. I shook my head in bewilderment.
The Slow Cowboy hung around awkwardly in the corner. He had asked me out on a date once. It was my mother's fault. She would make me dance with him at the congregation dances. Of course I had to ask him, since he was so shy, and it was always rather painful as he was a terrible dancer. But no one else would dance with him besides his mother, so I had to do it. Why me? I guess because I didn't really mind, although I was afraid he would take it into his head to ask me out, which is exactly what happened. I had to turn him down, which apparently was a soul-crushing experience for him, and my mother has felt bad ever since. He also has a good heart, but his mind lags behind his body in development, and he'll never be fully capable of taking care of himself. At least not in this system. However, at this moment I loved him because he was sitting with the Sweetest Child in his lap, and I knew she was completely safe with him. His innocence made him almost beautiful, and I knew his mind worked well enough that if her disgusting father showed up anytime he wouldn't hesitate to fetch the rifle.
The Tall Blond had never stopped talking, and I had never started listening. I stared up into the glass eyes of a disembodied elk hovering above my head. Another doll without a name. I stared at him, begging him to help me make sense of good people in a world that was too bad and too much for them to handle. People who were beaten down to a point where their only recourse was to take pride in the insults that had cut them, and to embrace the stigmas that haunted them. Because these people were, in their own way, happy. And I, standing in the midst of it but never really touching it, was not.
So who's stupid now?
I stood there on the new faux-wood floor and stared into the cold pellet fireplace. Pieces of animals clung to the walls in testament that men with guns can kill creatures without guns. "Really?" I wondered, "Is that really her dream? Or is it bravado watered down with misplaced pride? Or, worse, is it all she dares to dream, convinced after years of disappointment that it's all she could ever deserve?"
The Sweetest Child now ran in. She flung her arms around me and I hugged her tightly wishing I could take her away forever. It had just been discovered that her father was sexually abusing her during her weekends with him. At least, that's what her mother, the Tall Blond said. Unfortunately the Tall Blond was a compulsive liar and it was always hard to tell what was really going on. She had a good heart, but a poor mind, and if the state knew just how poor the Sweetest Child would no doubt be on her way to foster care. It's hard to choose between so many evils. When the Tall Blond first made accusations against the father, the state's form of "mediation" had been to say that the Sweetest Child should be sent back to the father's home for the weekend to, I kid you not, "see if it happens again". I wanted to cry as I held her, but the anger that ignited in my chest dried the tears before they could make their way out. And so I stood there, holding the Sweetest Child, trying to douse the fire with the mantra that "vengeance belongs to god, he will repay."
The Sweetest Child released me and ran to the New Baby squirming on the couch. The Family Friend, never to be found far from the couch, was doing that thing where she pretended to be minding the New Baby, but wasn't actually doing anything to prevent it from crying, flying, or dying. "Don't touch her!!" screeched the Tall Blond as the Sweetest Child attempted to lift her sister from the couch. The Family Friend didn't say anything. She never said anything.
I stood there as the conversation moved around me. I would look at my shoes, I would glance out the door, I would search for ways to relate. I, too, was "trailer trash", although no one had ever dared to call me that, much less chase me home from school. I had never shacked up with a man who tried to strangle me before my child's eyes, and then later attacked the child in unimaginable ways as a form of hurting me once I was beyond his reach.
"Come see the doll collection!" exclaimed the Mother and Somebody Else's Mother. I followed dutifully into the "office", a room with a computer against one wall and floor-to-ceiling shelves heaped high with all sorts of dolls on the other. The Mother had been collecting them all her life. Barbies, baby dolls, miniature victorian dolls, anything with a plastic face in a ruffled dress. I thought about how I had owned only two dolls in my entire life. One was a Korean silk doll brought back during the war by my grandfather, the other a baby doll that I was drawn to after just barely being too old for dolls anymore. I couldn't make sense of the heaps of painted cheeks and glass eyes. I walked out of the room wondering if any of them had names. Or if they all had names. I shook my head in bewilderment.
The Slow Cowboy hung around awkwardly in the corner. He had asked me out on a date once. It was my mother's fault. She would make me dance with him at the congregation dances. Of course I had to ask him, since he was so shy, and it was always rather painful as he was a terrible dancer. But no one else would dance with him besides his mother, so I had to do it. Why me? I guess because I didn't really mind, although I was afraid he would take it into his head to ask me out, which is exactly what happened. I had to turn him down, which apparently was a soul-crushing experience for him, and my mother has felt bad ever since. He also has a good heart, but his mind lags behind his body in development, and he'll never be fully capable of taking care of himself. At least not in this system. However, at this moment I loved him because he was sitting with the Sweetest Child in his lap, and I knew she was completely safe with him. His innocence made him almost beautiful, and I knew his mind worked well enough that if her disgusting father showed up anytime he wouldn't hesitate to fetch the rifle.
The Tall Blond had never stopped talking, and I had never started listening. I stared up into the glass eyes of a disembodied elk hovering above my head. Another doll without a name. I stared at him, begging him to help me make sense of good people in a world that was too bad and too much for them to handle. People who were beaten down to a point where their only recourse was to take pride in the insults that had cut them, and to embrace the stigmas that haunted them. Because these people were, in their own way, happy. And I, standing in the midst of it but never really touching it, was not.
So who's stupid now?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Old Muses and Old Bruises
(This was written long, long ago. But haunts me now, just the same...)
I've been taking on the habits of an insomniac lately. I blame stress. And the heat. How can a person sleep when they stick to the bed? How can a person sleep with the devil in the next room? But now we're just being melodramatic. Don't sink to her level.
I met a boy on a mountain once. He was younger than me. He taught me more in one day than anyone else I can think of. And I remember him saying, "It's strange, you've read all the books I have read, and you already know my favorite lines." Like the one about flying. Just throw yourself at the ground and miss. We tried it. Damn our aim.
He was the only complete person I've ever known. He didn't want anything in the world. And I could only find him on that mountain. As soon as we got to the bottom he disappeared. I remember dropping him off in the middle of the street in the middle of the city, and he just put on his back pack and faded into the half-light. The next weekend I found him on the mountain again.
I don't know where he lived. I don't know where he is now. I don't know his last name. So many questions I never asked him. Like where did he go that dark night? Was he ever a child? Why did it make him happy to humor me?
You know what he asked me? He asked me how old I was. Then he asked me how old he was. "And how old am I?" he asked, like he was speaking to a child. I did the math. "Younger than my little brother." He was testing me. He wanted to see if it would freak me out.
It did.
I never kissed him. It wasn't just the age thing, it was how totally separate from reality he was. I didn't want to drag him down to earth and make him part of my everyday life. He said things to me that to this day ring in my head as some of the truest words ever spoken. They come to me in stressful times. Which must be why I'm thinking of him tonight. I found him during a time of sadness and silence. And maybe I took all my hope and projected it onto him, because I felt that I was no longer a vessel of hope. Someone else had to carry it. I don't know what the truth is, because all I have are the memories, and the memories are like the light points of a dream, mostly feeling and glimpses of places too beautiful for conscious thought. He's the representation of... oh i don't know, something deep.
He's a regular human being, and he's out there somewhere. But in my mind, he'll always be on that mountain.
I've been taking on the habits of an insomniac lately. I blame stress. And the heat. How can a person sleep when they stick to the bed? How can a person sleep with the devil in the next room? But now we're just being melodramatic. Don't sink to her level.
I met a boy on a mountain once. He was younger than me. He taught me more in one day than anyone else I can think of. And I remember him saying, "It's strange, you've read all the books I have read, and you already know my favorite lines." Like the one about flying. Just throw yourself at the ground and miss. We tried it. Damn our aim.
He was the only complete person I've ever known. He didn't want anything in the world. And I could only find him on that mountain. As soon as we got to the bottom he disappeared. I remember dropping him off in the middle of the street in the middle of the city, and he just put on his back pack and faded into the half-light. The next weekend I found him on the mountain again.
I don't know where he lived. I don't know where he is now. I don't know his last name. So many questions I never asked him. Like where did he go that dark night? Was he ever a child? Why did it make him happy to humor me?
You know what he asked me? He asked me how old I was. Then he asked me how old he was. "And how old am I?" he asked, like he was speaking to a child. I did the math. "Younger than my little brother." He was testing me. He wanted to see if it would freak me out.
It did.
I never kissed him. It wasn't just the age thing, it was how totally separate from reality he was. I didn't want to drag him down to earth and make him part of my everyday life. He said things to me that to this day ring in my head as some of the truest words ever spoken. They come to me in stressful times. Which must be why I'm thinking of him tonight. I found him during a time of sadness and silence. And maybe I took all my hope and projected it onto him, because I felt that I was no longer a vessel of hope. Someone else had to carry it. I don't know what the truth is, because all I have are the memories, and the memories are like the light points of a dream, mostly feeling and glimpses of places too beautiful for conscious thought. He's the representation of... oh i don't know, something deep.
He's a regular human being, and he's out there somewhere. But in my mind, he'll always be on that mountain.
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