Eat your bones
Eat Your Bones
There was a weird rhythm in the day. I felt like one thousand strands of string all knotted together. Young woman walked down the street with a child on a leash. Man on the train, bent at the waist, holding a radio in his left hand and hanging onto the train rail with his right. Hunched over, his radio played a distorted tune. You’re a good man, he said pointing to the radio. You’re blessed now. Do you hear it? A lot of people die. This disease kills em’ all… He let go of the rail and stuttered through doors to the next car.
We walked from the train to my house. She had half a forty in her hand, and I had nothing, maybe a cigarette on my lips. I pissed behind some bushes and she waited on the sidewalk. Car lights passed by. Now I was on the curb. There was broken glass from where she threw the bottle. Her words didn’t mean what they were supposed to mean. My lungs felt bruised.
She tried and whispered, You’re a beautiful distinction. You’re a good person…I’m going to eat your bones. I tried to think of something damaged. We should give up and I tried to roll over. If I could just sleep. She said, Don’t go yet. Hug me. We hugged in the dark. If I worked hard enough, maybe I could do a better job of expressing myself.
We could hear my landlord get up for work. I fell asleep. She staid up and listened to me twist and wallow in my dreams. The landlord stubbed his toes on the kitchen table. He cursed in his own tongue. She got up and took my shirt off her back. She made me look away as not to see her naked body. I turned towards the wall and thought of how many naked bodies I had seen. The poet could never express exactly what was meant to say. It’s ironic. She put on the same clothes as yesterday.
Was In Love
I wrote about love. The closest I had been to the emotion turned out to be memories of naked body parts and nostalgia. At the time, the relationship was alive. I was so close to it. We are more than our ideas…It all compressed a little.
A good relationship was something I had little knowledge of and only obtained from a distance. At some point, the sun started going down. It’s about the poem, not about me or you.
She reached out and scraped her fake nails up and down my naked thigh. There is similarity between strangers. I snapped a photo of her with a disposable camera. She would come to my house after school. We would run upstairs to my room. Sex was never something that crossed my mind. I believed sex was for people in love. I knew nothing about a woman’s period. The poem doesn’t want me to tell you that. I was in love.
Honesty and Secrets and Chaos
I scraped some mold off the inner side of my cup. I lived in a two-bedroom in-law unit in the back of a Brazilian’s home. I had never written anything of meaning or substance. There was this moment, a flame that burned my stomach. It raged for a second or two, but I put it out. It came on like a stranger, creeping in without warning. It all seemed rather ridiculous.
That white lace that hung coolly off one shoulder. At the train station, I saw a triangle tattooed behind your ear. What a perfect symbol it was. It’s easy to get hurt, she said, Do you think you’re mentally stronger than I am? I’ll lose myself, but I am desire, fed by honesty and secrets and chaos. I thought I could so easily fool the world around me.
Now the stranger on the train cursed the morning. A sense of apathy clouded the ignorant mind. I let the television do my thinking for the day.
Five Over
I woke up with a familiar taste in my mouth. I could feel it down in my throat, dry and thick. I was in front of the house. The day was almost over. She said something like, Where does the impulse come from? When I think about it, we were just drunk, standing on some street corner. But looking into her eyes, seeing my reflection, the chances were she wanted more. I’m not going to sing, I said. Her eyes sparkled in the streetlights. I said, Fuck, I can’t. She was standing there, pint in one hand, and the cap in the other. I sang:
I want to marry a lighthouse keeper
and live by the sea
I want to marry a lighthouse keeper
and keep him company
She smirked, maybe, laughing as the bottle was raised to her lips. With a cringe, she swallowed the brown liquid and coughed a little afterward.
Out on the front porch she felt up her jacket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. She lit one. Blue smoke curled from her lips. She exhaled through her nose; a grey fog rose up over her head and evaporated. Reality was determined by interpretation. Down the street two blocks and around the corner I was driving my grandma’s car, blowing smoke out the window. I had the radio up and I turned the corner. She tossed her cigarette in the gutter and steped into the street. I was coming down the block going five over. I must have been in a trance because now she was hurdling out of the way. She could smell the radiator vapors rising from the hood. I cranked the wheel hopping a curb and crashed into a fence. I glanced out the rear view mirror. She was brushing dirt off her pants. I clasped clammy hands over my face, and a spark of adrenaline jetted up my spine. I fell from the driver side door onto somebody’s front lawn. A nervous fire began to burn in my stomach.
Sometimes We Feel Endless
This car had a dent in the passenger door. Dust and grime covered it rim to rim. The vinyl seats, cracked and smooth like scales torn apart. The floor mat had a laceration down the center. A new radio deck with all the features and intermittent flashes, on and off, cracked in the center, so many different colors dancing an erratic dance that would never end. Somehow, the dashboard remained sleek, black without a mark. Beautiful and normal.
Sometimes people change for the worse, she said, a look of uncertainty and an expressionless stare. You're only in it for the story, she said. Sometimes we feel endless, limitless, faithless, selfishness. There is an identity that can only be expressed through writing. I like you, she whispered in my ear. Confused and chained to words rather than action, like a domino effect of passion and heartache and listless behavioral patterns over and over and over. The poet within a poet. Someday, you'll love me, she said. Maybe someday, was my reply.
Denial
People who are symmetrical are inherently beautiful. It’s hard to get through the day without denial. I thought about how love isn’t tangible.
Some time past midnight…you never want to know after midnight. Thirsty flecks of blood flaked from her cheek and caught the wind; still, there is no pleasure in writing, but having written. She was in a liminal phase. She thought of it as a reminder.
A Bad Poem
I woke up this morning with a sore throat. I thought about the people that don’t like me, and wondered if they would be happy, like a bad poem…You can do just the same by being quiet.
She left things at my house intentionally and she wanted to talk about how we don’t write anymore. Sometimes she wrote something to get it out of her. I tongued out my language, slobbering out stops and landmarked sights, trying to communicate all arbitrary facts and ideas in her direction. I wondered where all this time went. It crept on and I was lost in it. It makeed me listless and euphoric. It goes somewhere I can’t follow. The poet can never express exactly what is meant to say.
Too Many Dogs
I was realizing I wouldn’t have a cigarette later. The bus stop seemed a lot more crowded. I was waiting and a bus came that wasn’t mine, and it was overflowing with all these people. A woman dressed in black was stranded outside the backdoor. I had a thought about her later, but my bus came. She was not as pretty in the light. I still wasn’t as pretty as she was.
Something in the window now, it’s my reflection, but I don’t mind. I looked at her. She was looking down and smiling. The bus stoped and I didn’t want to look at her again, but I did. I will, always, even when I don’t want to. I have to see something beautiful, or peculiar or monstrous even though it hurts me inside. And everyone else looked. And I felt fucked up because we all wanted to look. And what’s the worth of unknowing something?
I was walking the path home. The path I always took, behind the apartment buildings. I smelled dog shit. I noticed it on the path, and then some more. A girl walking in front of me stepped in some. The poem convinces you that’s how the world is. There were too many dogs in this neighborhood.
She Stomped
Through my bedroom window the six AM sun was turning the sky orange. In my restlessness, I came to the conclusion that I am alone. Bitter and helpless I kicked the sheets from my bed. With feet on the floor, I stood, walked to the full-length mirror I had yet to secure to the wall. I stared for a long time into my pale blue eyes; searching for someone within them. I pulled on tattered jeans and picked up a shirt from the ground. Wrestling it over my head, I headed for the front door.
She and I were at the train station. Her mom had dropped us off. I looked away at the passengers about to board the train. We walked over to the dirt and stood under some trees. I turned around and took a piss; she lit a joint as I did. We stood there in silence for a minute passing the joint back and forth. My mind expanded and then compressed. I got some food from my Mom, she pointed to the brown bag at her feet. It was full of meat, potatoes, pasta, and candy. I reached in the bag and took out a piece of chocolate. I carefully unwrapped it and put the foil in my jacket pocket. She took one out and chewed it. I checked the train schedule in my backpack. She stomped out the roach and we gathered our things. My head was inflated; I could feel the heaviness behind my eyes. Time slowed and the day was fading away, the moment was closer and more personal. As we walked along the sidewalk, each step echoed its own fantastic sound. She didn't talk much and I liked that about her.
I Smell Metal
The sky went dark hours ago. Stars permeated through black. Dead grass and sullen trees lined the lake. The water was still, glass, crystal, sheet metal, except for a single ripple coming from the center. If something were living in there, it would be deep, deep down. Lonely crickets playing their melancholy orchestra. Grey light from the moon reflected off the water resembling a dream state. Grease driped from the dying trees, and smelled like hot glue. Shapes didn't exist anymore; neither did colors, just black. I smell metal.
On her way home from school, she found the gun tucked heedfully in the storm drain behind the Safeway. She stuffed it into her backpack. She sprinted home. When she got there, she pulled the gun from her pack and stared with anticipation. We have small tragedies…She would often think of dying. Carefully, and with false rectitude, she wrapped her fingers around the trigger and raised the gun to her temple. Do you always know what’s happening? The gun demanded. There was a click in the atmosphere. She buried the gun in the backyard.
The Waking Sun
I put on a shirt from the floor. I put on my jacket and feel for my cigarettes. I moved to the door. Light flooded through as it opened. It made me nauseous. A soft voice came from the hall. She sat down in a chair and started flipping through a book. I stood at the open door. Can I have a cigarette? she asked. I pulled two from the pack and lit them both. Where are you going? she asked. Her eyes were mirroring the waking sun, smoke danced from her nostrils. She wanted to preserve her loneliness. She pulled at my shirt. I grabbed her hand and lead her through the open door. My car wass parked two blocks away. Where will we go? she asked.
She was too frightened to ask what wass happening. She convinceed herself she wants to know the truth, but she was paralyzed by denial for a few more moments. The poem preserves solidarity. She opened her mouth to speak. Instead, a few crisp screeches came from her mouth like the sound of a crow.
Plexiglass
Her parents divorced. It was her mother who kept the house. It wasn’t a remarkable house. The roof above her bedroom leaked and the garage flooded when it rained, which caused mold. She was allergic to the mold. Flies circled around unwashed dishes in the sink, producing a spiteful odor in the nostrils. Pipes rattled and shook away loose bits of rust, turning the tap water brown. We know what it’s like to want to get away. The house wanted to hold itself together. The coils on the water heater looked as if they are covered in cardboard, wrapped with dishcloths, held together with super glue. The electrical box was a disheveled mix of loose wires, paper clips and duct tape. Almost every window had been replaced with plexiglass. There is an interpretive strategy that allows us to see what we’re seeing…
Value is based on context, the stranger said, expelling wisdom that wasn’t requested, to nobody. The stranger looked out at the platform. You can’t perceive or interpret the world if you are the world, he shouted as the train yelled back, pulling up to the station. He switched on the radio. A distorted tune played.
Not Unhappy
Think of clouds. The rain was coming down hard. The wind whipped it in every direction. Understanding happens at the end of a process, I thought, pulling a cigarette from my pack and putting it to my lips. I’m not unhappy today. A bus pulled up across the street with a picture of someone sheltering their lighter as they burned the tip of a cigarette. The person’s throat was X-rayed to see their esophagus, the smoke curling down creating a black sludge. I looked at my cigarette. Half burnt, it was sagging and wet with rain. I looked at the bus once more, tossed the cigarette in the gutter and started walking up the street. It’s natural for the mind to find meaning. On the corner, I stopped to pick up an umbrella on the street. I opened it and three cockroaches fell onto my feet. I danced in place, shaking them to the ground. They scurried off into the road. One fell to the gutter, whisked away by brown water. I lifted the umbrella up over my head; disappointed to see it slashed with holes. Water dripped onto my face and clothes. I continued to walk with the umbrella…I looked up at a STOP sign; underneath STOP, someone had scratched, “dying.” Stop dying. I continued up the street, sat on a bench in front of a restaurant and watched the people hurry along in the rain. Think of dreams. Last night at the bar, the lights reflected her eyes. She vomited blood. At first, it dribbled from her lips then erupted in an explosive tantrum, the taste of iron and metal in her mouth as she fell backwards into darkness. There are only truths from certain perspectives.
I wandered down the hall in my shorts, looking for a spark to light my cigarette. I came to a door part way ajar. A distorted tune was heard from the radio, and I pushed the door the rest of the way open. You, with your back turned to me, lying on a mattress with no sheets, only a comforter. I stood in the doorway, listening to the static in the empty room. The walls were stained yellow and brown, reminding me of a watercolor painting. The eggshell background spattered with contrasting dull colors disgusted me; I thought highly of that painting. She stirred, looked over her shoulder at me. She said, You might not think you’re understanding, but that’s what you’re doing.
