Shifting Shapes of Consciousness.

"awake," he said, is funny...
you don't notice the connection
between leaving your dreams and death;
"i mean," he continued, smiling wry
"at wakes they lay you on a table
and they drink to your dying..."
"isn't a wake something boats leave behind?"
he smiled again.
.
.

Sorts of Healing.

fingertips finally dry;
a crimson dust is all that's left
of your midnight mescaline dreams....
my blind scales are both gone;
a dewy new glimpse is my solitary means
of slipping past perception....
and the words you left
that bled and bled
until my walls were solid red
are still here,
lining my crysalis.
today i believe.
.
.

Reaching Again

reaching into awake
again.

arms and eyes desperate
tendons may snap like taut wires
loss a middle C --

note reverberates
until that sound fills the room
drowns out the others

deep in december
the only music was breath
and shifting bodies

now this din won't die
won't fade itself into space
go back to the moon

singing
again.
.
.

I always wake first.

i trace the thin white scars across your hips
scattered lightning across the muscle;
my breath contemplates escape
but i'm afraid to wake you
not sure why....
so i trace the dark line of your jaw
losing fingers in the new texture
and i quietly lift in mundane joy
now i race to close the blinds
to keep us safe.
.
.
Fragile.

in the seconds between
this breath and the next
i am held, trapped and timeless
wishing for a moment of release....
blankets fetal at the foot of the bed
my red shirt tossed on the back on a chair,
i feel your hands caught in my hair
as you wonder at the moonlight slipping through;
your whispered voice
there in the dark
holds what  i find
on the cusp of dream.
i tumble off this precipice
and wake up alone.
.
.

If

if last night
you were near,
as sky claimed the ground's white
and the streetlight hanging in my window
yellowed a path through the fog -
i'd have slept.

with unfailing skill
my hands are finding you
through the january night,
as your eyes remember me;
the sounds of the city run red through our veins
as we dash hope against the ice.

the rest of me is blind and lost and strange.
.
.

Warm Rain in Isolation

i wake to your tears
falling down onto my lips
as the night murmurs

i live in memory
as the pulse moves underneath
tissue paper skin.
.
in trembling fingers
grasped by promise and cliche
stars are unfurling
.
through the mists of sleep
he gathers in exhaled breath
stalking her silence.
.
.

Purple sleep is bitter.

i wake seven times into the same night;
three trips downstairs
six glasses of water
a piece of toast.
i run my hands over and over my face
as the nausea hits,
head spinning off-balance;
small tribal drums
and the stinging taste of acid
swirl through too-yellow light.
staring into the bathroom mirror
i run pins and scissors across my arms
to watch blood rise to the surface,
flowering into arterial blue;
i see it like movies
it glares
with the bright lights of stage,
i taste it too strong
metallic
it doesn't taste like tears,
i feel it too much
it occurs
as i sink back into sleep.
.
.

I find you on the edge of rest.

i find you on the edge of rest;
as i surface, one warm inhalation,
the piano-wire strings in my chest pull taut
and i find that my insides make tentative excursions.
i reach for you, past the ends of the bed,
alight with the knowledge of our distance;

i am possessed with the sensations of your pulse
hammering through my skull
through the cage of your ribs.

i find you on the cusp of awake;
as i reform, a being of heavy air molecules,
the segments of my memory paint you back alive.
i find that my eyes sting with the need to see more than these walls.
reach for you, past the curtain's lace,
aflame with the knowledge of your passing;

i am possessed with the sensations of your pulse
hammering through my skull
through the cage of your ribs.
.
.

Waking.

Each day this severing occurs.

A shaft of yellow light announces;

pulling their bodies apart upon waking,
the tear is inaudible.

He smiles with hazy truth.

The morning-warm smell of her
will linger on his left side,
where she clings through the seas of sleep;

The lines of her body smile.

The vague imprint of his collarbone
will fade slowly from her cheek,
where his pulse finds its way in;

Morning treads with quiet footfalls;
the day breaks hesitantly, always.
.
.

Touching Down.

and in that breath i was suspended
in the tendrils of the glance you cast
careful, through half-lidded eyes
hoping to savour this first sight;

and in that moment i was held
hovering on the pulse you sent
resonating into my chest
wishing through quiet that i might
      fall with you.
.
.
 

Deaf.

"then will the world be deaf"
remains of words
echo down the long straight hall as
the numbness in my fingers fades,
the sounds of  inhalations grow
louder
more conscious
more and more desperate --
i wake to the noise of clanging pots and clutching hands.
hold him to me
under the wash of a neon sign
begging him in my quiet to touch;
to feel the strands of hope i'd wound around
and come out clean and shining,
to stop the words against his lips,
find the lining of the dream we'd lost
and hold it for those few short seconds.
but my fate was an unsure cloud
and measuring my exhalations i see
the truth in distance:
his world is deaf.
i cry.
he hushes me with an empty kiss
in silence.
.
.

Today it feels.

today it feels like rain
        seeping in through under the floorboards
        to where i sleep in my huddled memories,
        clutching at the shreds of words i'd scribbled, frantic
        in his eyes.

today it feels like the end of fall
        streets sing the taste of rotten leaves;
        cars pass by with rolled-up windows and they grin, malicious,
        as they try to kill me with their motor-misery,
        desperate for flight.

today it feels like the beginning of forgetfulness
        the signs and faces slowly fade from where
        i'd stashed them in the cupboards, there;
        they merge and morph and scream to be let go...
                but it feels like rain.
i turn my back and close my eyes again.
.
.

Down and Out.

down and out and far away
drifting slow and fading fast
no opening of eyes today, i'll hope
this crying light won't last.
up and down and in the air
floating in this static haze
my screams will stay barely there, i'll use
my voice for bigger things.
and wish it were over.
.
.

Love Me.

i found myself
in your broken shout
as you burst upon impact with morning.
a perfect wanting membrane
wrapping my limbs tightly;
i have no escape from your sadness.
the mirror repels me
as i stare at the dissolving lines;
my face becomes your shadow,
a distorted 2-d shape of you
warming my periphery.
i cry for you,
to you,
at your voice,
nightly.
my hands cold without you here.
.
.

Morning after battles.

waking in a strange place
i watch from behind blankets --
you stand in the mirror,
carefully count the new cuts
left by another midnight.
i know the blood will wash from underneath my nails,
the teeth marks on your skin will  fade;
and yet i see your smile
as you pause and hope
the scars on your back will stay proof of passion....
angry love.
.
.

Spying on your dreams.

trembling, trying not to wake you...
i feel my fingers slip,
i taste
sparks humming underneath --
your skin a soft
cold
thin veneer;
once in every thousand nights
i can dive beneath it.
.
.

Nowhere Marks.

the lines on my hand
have disappeared;
i don't know where i left them.

when this morning woke me
screaming,
covering my mouth with  fingers,
the flesh i bit into was cold and smooth
unreal and unyielding:

the hands i'd offered up to giants
are a thousand tiny mirrors,
my sloughed off skin a million shards
littering the bed.
.
.

Strenuous.

straining at his seams.
clumsily stitched,
they'll rip, one piece -
wet severing sounds wake me
lost into midnights,
grabbing at the sheets,
feeling for another form
huddled here.

mad urges whisper "leap from bed"
but i struggle over him
to plant my feet on cold floorboards,
quiet,
finding clothes in semi-dark,
reaching for the door.

surrounded by broken things.

no dialtone,
table split, we eat at angles
that slide plates into strangers' laps;
a house of ice and half-remembered books,
clothes strewn....
(they envision orgies in the den,
scrambling, drunken, lost.)

i don't want to tear this husk,
or leave it roadside
where children can hoard my shell of skin,
take to class,
scare girls.
but the strain is making noise -
one eardrum collapsed,
holding my breath through days,
trying to wear it one day longer.

these tears are like acid
and i see them eat through.

try to cover my gaping holes,
no use.
sharp white light shines in
and feeds me.

i am becoming giant.
.
.

Nightcrawling.

dragged back from sleeping
late last night
there was a sound, a breath
coming from outside
i thought
it might be you, somehow.
the half-frozen rain drew down the glass
i could see the moon over the tip
of the house next door;
could feel the cold coming in in waves.
the quiet held hostage as i waited
for the sounds to start again,
so i'd know when to smash through
and out this bloody window
and fly down those
nine
short
stories
to be with you.
but all i heard
were my soft sounds:
alone,
half-drugged with sleep
and dreams.
late.
.
.

Illusions of Sleepers.

waking up --
open my eyes into yours
and turn slowly away
to press my back against you.

seventeen seconds later
i turn
and  realize

the bed is strange and too small
the walls are cold to the touch
and i am away
from you.
.
.

Not falling.

my nights are washed with the glow of ragged unlit stars
even in the midst of this i don't dream of falling far.
i woke up from an exhausting balance-beam routine
45 degree angle floors try to slide me offscreen.
.
.

They all Start.

        they all start when she wakes.  mostly, it is not a symbol or an
extended metaphor, but merely a convenient start-point for another
delusion.  today it was in a haze of streetlights.  the night passed without
event and she slipped through unconscious dances for the required hours.
none of us anticipated what she might find there.  a boy -- a baby, with
his left hand stabbed through with metal, adorned the proceedings.  there
was a blacklight quality to all the ladies' dresses.  sound was minimal as
was she.  she has just recently remembered how to escape these bloody picures.
but there is a strange taste on the edge of her tongue, now.  it reminds her of
meat with red wine in the summer months.  and she doesn't know what she
wants to do about this whole thing.
.
.

Sudden sounds into the dark.

my eyes open with a start...tipped over into a bluelight surreal.  the
taste of a half-million unspoken dream-words still on the edge of my
consciousness.  i reached for you, first, love.  as i stumbled back into
the night with a straight-razor readiness that follows me, tearing at my
shirtsleeves insistently.  i can't wake any more than this.  i'm trapped
here just in the space beyond knowing.  it's all too unreal, and i can't
reach the lightswitch, and i'm half-afraid that i'll never get back into
the me that was...six hours ago.  i'll stay here on the terrified, lucid,
pinnacle of dream.
.
.

Here goes daylight.

       stepping small quivering feet into the world that starts on the
periphery of the blankets.  snaking my yes out from behind their careful
curtains, leaving prison bar lashes in front to protect me if it's all the
same...if the set-movers haven't done their job on time.

                they did.

        the light slanting in through the blinds is not blue lunar green.  i
am not bartering with archangels for the freedom of my conscience.  i have
my rings, they haven't fallen into anyone's electric eye.  i am naked.  but
that proves nothing.

        prying myself from sleep isn't what it used to be -- a
split-second rescue, a hesitant recurring trial by fire.  i used to welcome
the day with its dull colours and warm smells.  now my dreams hold me for
ransom and i, the willing victim, curl into their familiarity for ten to
twelve hours a night.  half my life spent surreal....

        that's why your body means so much to me.  your heat.  your skin
beside me tangled in the sheets.  you're a sliver of reality that acts as
my touchstone.  without your naked sleep and drugged 'sweetdreams' i'd
wander off into some soft impermanence.  touching you reminds me that i'm
back here.  that i still have the ability to deny my own escapes.  that i
belong to the day.  folding nto your shoulder is a barrier against the
film-noir winds that buffet me through midnights.  i can't conceive of ever
waking up if there wasn't living breathing blood here with me.  unless
someday i can drag you along into my nightmares.
.
.

After Hours

after four suns have risen to greet me, alone, i can speak. i can reach my hands out, unfurl these half-lucid tendrils of emotion, and try to sculpt words out of them.

For one hundred hours i've been mute, staggering through the dog days without you. i was sure, tuesday, that one of us had been transported while asleep, so that two who fell to sleeping together woke up isolated, uncertain and alien. my room, these floors, the colour of the light i switch on in the evening - it's all from somewhere else. somewhere not real. they've been building sets, knocking me out with drugs and deprivation. i know if i put my gloves on and throw one solid punch that these walls, hollow, shoddy, will collapse and i'll see them. exposed wires and sheepish technicians.

i don't know why they've chosen to do this to me, or to you. or even who they are.

but i know that each nerve in my body, every cell, is firing and trembling and trying to extend itself those 400 km to where you are. attempting reassembly.
.
.

The locomotion of despair.

this morning i am late.  again.  prying my eyes open is a herculean task.  moving is terrible.  my head is let behind, hidden in the bedsheets.
stepping out of the doorway. the sun hits me fullforce in the eyes, blasting through the lenses, burrowing deep in the backs of my retinas and filling my head with screaming white. a thousand small mirrors inside my skull magnify the light and shoot it painfully into every corner. i can feel it weaving through the gyri and sulci and making its way down my spine.
dry heat washes the sleep from my body.

i start walking down the side street, past the church and vietnamese cafe. like i'm walking on balloons and underwater and not even awake. i can feel each tiny shock as it travels up my shins and terminates at my waist. start to take harder steps. grinding my heels into the pavement to see if maybe the summer's melted the asphalt enough to leave an impression. a little girl points at me and i have the mad desire to shout things from my belly. loud, low syllables.

snap.

i run until my throat is swallowing sharp balls of fire, until my skeleton is a xylophone of aches and knife-edged pains. i'm lost. i've never been on this street before. i can see an opening in the trees behind the row of houses. i can't stop. everything goes black, but i'm sure i'm still running.
.
.

Blurred.

my eyes open with a start...tipped over into a bluelight surreal.  the taste of a half-million unspoken dream-words still on the edge of my consciousness.  i reached for you, first, love.  as i stumbled back into the night with a straight-razor readiness that follows me, tearing at my shirtsleeves insistently.  i can't wake any more than this.  i'm trapped here just in the space beyond knowing.  it's all too unreal, and i can't reach the lightswitch, and i'm half-afraid that i'll never get back into the me that was...six hours ago.  i'll stay here on the terrified, lucid, pinnacle of dream.
.
.

If i watch for it it comes.

there was a time in which our sleep needed to tangle into one another's completely. where our limbs had to lock in intricate arcane patterns and each surface of my body had to kiss yours. nights of cast aside blankets and mornings of sore muscles alongside our perfect bliss at waking up so entirely physically involved.

some nights i had my face pressed so firmly into the hollow of your chest that your heartbeat kept me awake for hours.

now i know that touch is vital, but enough.

if i can feel my back brushing your side, or stomach. or your hand thrown across my waist. or the lengths of our bare legs. or your foot protectively over mine. that's all i need to have this hum me gently back to sleep. your pulse generates at the point of contact and travels through my bloodstream to wherever it's needed most.

i know you're not going away.
.
.

Semi-conscious.

partly awake.
middle of the night, in near-dark, the only light ...blue 12 flashing intermittent.  i turned his palm up to kiss it, nuzzling up against his back trying to encase him.

there, in the lines i memorized eight years ago.  wheels.  dozens maybe. small, all sizes, overlapping slightly. whispering my lips over them, i try to catch a scent of ink or dye or burnt flesh. taste the skin there.

none.

wheels. nothing new. wheels.

i want to turn him over and switch on the lights and explore his body, every inch. find streetsigns and phone messages and post its in between his ribs or tucked in behind his knees.

but i'm trapped in blankets. wound. heat that billows up and suffocates me. unfinished paintings at the foot of the bed stare, baleful. scorned.

i think, maybe, that the lights will erase them like fire. only there in the almost black.

a handful of half-invisible wheels.
.
.

Eyes Open Slowly.

when i woke up this morning i was dizzy. my head was askew, one side heavier and somebody'd set it spinning like an amateur pot on the wheel. felt like i hadn't slept at all -- except i had a head full of dreams, none of which i could clearly pick out and paint back into pictures...just a clutter of ragged edged pieces.
i wanted to go back to sleep terribly.
i couldn't.
i tossed and turned and tucked my head under the blankets, refused to fully open my eyes, nothing worked. so i screamed. well, more a yell of frustration. then i locked myself in the bathroom and cried.
i think it's a western tradition. maybe the whole world. it's the only place anyone gets real privacy, right? so i've logged countless hours balancing myself on the sides of numerous bathtubs, measuring my breaths, and trying to stifle my own sobbing sounds. too bad the fucking acoustics are so good.
maybe with it's got more of a connection than that. maybe i'm attending to the perception that crying, to me, is just like bathroom matters. none of your business and not something a lady exposes others to.
anyway, the point is, this moring i cried, and i'm not sure why. but i hide well. and cold water does miracles.
.
.
 

My flesh does not freeze.

my flesh will never freeze under the guardianship of your hands. it grows around your fingers like some patient tree, accomodating your grasping nerves and the heat you send in. it strains at the seams, where you hunt them down in the pinpoint hours of early morning, before the light can hide them. my skin tries to open, again, trying to curl you up inside. the tearing sounds are distracting tonight. and t feels like maybe my edges are stretched to where you are, a black dot in the distance. you're again half a memory, the bright parts that cast haloes around streetlights and blurred faces in photographs. i know it's cliched. i know we're strange. weird, even. wyrd. the wyrd sisters. fates. casting destinies and all that once upon a time pretence. but it's piled up and suffocated by this skin, these nerve endings, and their private remembrances of you. an album of sensations, a still-life of neural firings and the intensity of life.
i considered stockpiling your smell, wearing all your clothes home in secret. i know it's insane. but will we always be in the transitive case, before and afters but not now? i don't know, tonight, how content i am to hover in a non-existence. though i built limbo.
.
.

Undoing.

        in the middle of the floor, they meet.  The noise stirs her, still woozy from the bloodloss.  The darkness
tries to trick her into thinking she’s still safe, wrapped in her little nightmares.

        he meets her, that is, coming upon her, silent and bleeding and terribly
        still, half-huddled on the floor.
        in the middle of the floor, he stumbles over her hand in the dark.

she looks up at the intruder, only partially believing that someone's
ended up here, of all places, on the end of days.  she'd picked the hall
for it's emptiness, it's abandoned syrup-heavy air.  now he was here, and
she could make out through the dark that he'd been expecting isolation, too.
he can't see her.  just senses that there's a human shape in hie way...his
eyes still haven't adjusted to the black.

she tries to use these precious moments to escape, find a new corner to
countdown her thoughts, never enough for an occaision like this.  she
doesn't even want to think about now.  just great spectacular thoughts.
thoughts she'd be proud to die thinking.

        he feels her moving and stops her.  it doesn't matter that there's
        company in his tomb, after all.  he's sighing and fixing his dilating
        pupils on the disturbed air near his left foot.
 'wait'

caught, she stops.  stills breath.  practices death, sings through the
softest nursery rhymes as camoflage so he won't see through her silence
into thoughts.  he's a mind-reader.  he came after her. she recognizes
him now.  he's been hearing her headspace for weeks, months, years
maybe...how long has he been here?

        his hand is on the woman's arm.  without the yielding heat of it
        he'd mistake it for a louis the 14th chair.  or parts of one.  he'd
        seen a junk heap outside an antique once and wanted the extravagance of tears.
        wanted to be neiztche's mythical horse of understanding.  the hat stand
        of sophocles, a nineteen fifties stapler.  wanted to be anything but
        buried.
        meaningless.  stupid.  irrational and strange.  he's been living with
        his madness accurately and well.

she turns to the silhouette and asks him to go with her mind.  she knows
he'll hear her better this way.  she wanted to bleed into sleep alone and
at peace and away from everything.  no waiting with the masses, huddled in
subway stations.  no having fate fall on her.  this once.  this last time.

        the man is starting to see her.  he wants to leave her, hideous
        now as the grey takes on definition, her face and chest  and arms scored
        red and weeping.  the girl on the train.  the one who wouldn't
        stop crying.  the one with the eyes.  who made him help her.  who hated
        him for trying.  fuck.  FUCK.

it registers in her hazy thoughts that he heard her.  his grip is
lessening, and his pulse isn't telegraphing through his slick forearm now.
he's going to leave her to her hurt and lullabyes in peace.

        he can't leave.  the dried blood glues them together.

and they are not alone as the world ends.
.
.

Paper Trail.

i woke, that day, to the first of a long line of mirror-notes:   they have since
come in different mediums (marker, lipstick, lighter-burn), different shapes,
concerns, and literary formats.  there are times when i doubt the idea
that they were ever not there, that there was a life before this brave
new step.
        he'd written it carefully in a dark-green marker, bordered and
centred as if the mirror was a page:

                _______________________________________

                     the dreams i will always have
                 of you include the feel of your
                 breasts, where your pulse echoes
                 like you had a thousand pounding
                 hands inside -- am i a fraud as the
                 knight in shining armour, the fool
                 who could not free them from their
                 cage?  i thought it was too white,
                 too beautiful to be rescued from --
                 how i wish in the midnights that i
                 were smaller and gentler, and could
                 make my home in there, nestled
                 between your lungs.  am i wrong?
                 do you hate me for probing your
                 chest for tears or locks or hope?
                _______________________________________

and that's all it said.  it really struck me, that words should
obscure my reflection, and that they be as obscure as these.  and it was
something i'd never seen from him, this wonder, this bloody-brained
inside.  and when i went back into the room the tiny pawprints he'd drawn
around the bed were as they should be.  and the light streaming through
the curtains was as faintly tinged with grey as it had ever been.  the
fact of what happened the night before almost fading from my mind, i
stepped into the closet.  he'd hung himself in the closet, his brother,
yesterday two cities away.  and *, my stoic lover, didn't know how to
deal with reality except on his own terms. i almost forgot, it'd been that
easy to watch him, stable, rational...him.  completely, as he learned of
his youngest brother's death hanging from a closet clothes-rod, blue and
bruised about the neck.  i didn't know -- maybe i still don't.  but that's
how the mirror-notes started.  that day.
.
.

Revelations on the edge.

        i am not one of the placeless.  the buddha escpaed the luxuries of
his father's palace to walk alone -- all the greatest boddhisatvas have
come from happy homes.  so is that my hope?
                the journey began with the sun slanting in through the windows
and the sounds of workmen dragging the felled remains of trees away...an apple
for breakfast and the dregs of last night's dreams slip off my skin as the
hot water showers over me.  gautama's footsteps founded a new sect, only a
fool would hope that his words could move a people on the brink of
bankruptsy, footprints are no longer enough.  we need a new religion, one
with teeth.
                        little boy bleeding
                        bright liquid path on pavement
                        horrible traces.

        i can't write anything that can speak really.  can anyone?  gah.
no.  forget it now.
.
.

Tonight. and tonight
as i chase the shadows down the wall
and watch the light flicker
your voice finds its way into my bones -
2 a.m. syllables curl up inside
nestle in my ribs. you, inches away. i am alone.
.
.

30 Degrees i am sun drunk.
four colours of fire
float embers in behind my eyes;
closing them falls cool waters over.
grass weaves through my fingers
(we, the ground and i, hold hands)
and we sink roots into each other;
you trace circles on hot bare skin. a flurry of seedpods blinds us
(a summer storm of dandelion stuff)
and it catches in our hair and mouths;
i wait for flowers to grow out.
i am sleeping.
with wide open eyes
sparkling like our near-calm lake;
i came up to breathe with you.
.
.

Fire in building 106.

with suffering eyes,
stinging in the smoke
i watch nothing;
(the air billows black out windows)

my charred fingertips lose feeling;
there is no fire left for these
small hands.(feeding on my oxygen)

i step into my burning bed,
curl into heat.
(no waking)
.
.
 

Semi-lucid states of grace.

she loves best on the edge of sleep.

plumetting softly into grey depths, feeling his body shift beside her, she had known his heart with total certainty. she
had whispered small quiet i love yous into the dark, casting them out to hover and collect near the ceiling. so that the
cloud of it would blanket them, hum through the night.

waking was always immediate. surfacing for air, her eyes unglued and the light spilled in, darting its way into every corner of her skull. coming back to life was always perfect when she found herself on her side, so that his still-sleeping face took up her field of vision. each black dart of eyelash, each tiny line etched into his skin was washed over with utter happiness. the gladness, the almost-surprise of finding him still there tore love from her chest and other parts.

it is only awake that she struggles. that she doubts and is so damned alone.
.
.

Leaving nights Alone.

i write this with the knowledge that you are asleep....

        she stops, puts down her pen, reaches towards the makeshift
bedside table to turn the lamp on.  the thought, ridiculous, that the
bright might wake him flashes crazy through her head.

....and all i have are pictures of you, lying there in some morning
splendour, alone or with someone irrelevant -- it comes across as a
snapshot of you, hair tousled, eyes pointed into the curve of the piled
blankets to keep the sun out.  adrift in some dream about songs and
streets and broken umbrellas, your body trying to wake you up....

        another pause as she becomes caught up in imaginings.  a sound
at the door?  just drunk students walking by loudly.  she rubs her hands
against her face, getting focus in the texture of her skin.

....i wish i could stop it, and let you rest a little longer.  and i wish
you were awake so you could be here.  and i'm selfish?  so.  i can't make
out your features, whoever you are.  i'm on the verge of disbelieving my
own creations, the words i've written out so far.  am i even awake?

                this is just a note to say hello, poke my head into your unconscious
world.  and to test my own reality.
.
.

Her Nightlife.

So I lost him.  I know that's my fault and that I'll be the one to suffer through it, too.
His pangs are temporary.  Thinks his heart is torn, that his world's gone wretched.  That this is the worst he'll ever feel.

I don't have that reassurance.

You see, I came home that night, late. That morning early.   Something like that.  One of the clocks said 3 am, another claimed to be just past 1. I was too drunk to bother guessing which was right and assumed that the average between them, 2, was closest to the truth.

I tried to be quiet as I got into bed beside him. Carefully shifting my weight to not disturb his body.

I was getting tripped up by the ceiling fan spinning over me, lying on my back --- this wooden star just circling, rotating at an obscene speed. I reached up to pull the chain and turn it off and that's what woke him.

I’m a stupid fucking drunk, I know.

The mattress tipped when I fell over, and the whole bed just sort of slid onto the floor. For a second I thought he'd sleep through it. Sure.

He woke up kicking his way out of the tangled sheets, staring at me with that soul-less startled look he always has for the first few minutes of waking.

I tried to compose myself while he struggled out of the blankets.  Drank the water in hopes of washing some of the rye stink from my mouth.  Still half-hoping he'd not wake.

He sat up and turned on the lamp.  Opened the drawer beside the bed and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
'So...' he lit the smoke and took a long time breathing it in, 'where were you?'

I tried to sound properly repentant, and sober. Soberer. 'I went to the zoo. Decided that I needed to be around more monkeys.'

He sighed and turned off the lamp so that he was represented simply by a glowing red ember hovering in mid-air. 'unhuh? You don't have enough of those at the bookstore?'

 One of those alcoholic laughs issued from the back of my throat, shuddering up from my belly. Muffled it in the pillow. 'Never enough monkeys. I prefer the small ones without suits. Sure they're not good conversationalists, but they appreciate the art of body language.'
 

I could feel his wry grin through the dark. 'So it's body language that you understand? Finally, I figure it out. What did you and the monkeys do all night?'

 I was getting sad and feeling trapped. And everything seemed tragic. 'We danced. Primates are the best dancers. my head dragged itself deeper into the pillow and my words blurred. 'I love you, though. Better than monkeys.'

He didn't answer me.    In the morning he was gone.
.
.

The sleeping of dreams.

three a.m. she glances at the glowing red numbers. eyes carefully slitted the slightest bit open. doesn't want to open them fully and force herself screaming back into the night.

shifting. movement in the bed beside her. him. him?
barely-open eyes see his shape, dark hair and light skin in the shadow, lips fluttering with each exhalation. the room's too quiet. even the street. no cars in the world.

for a second she doesn't recognize him, but she curls against his hot sleeping skin anyway. the chill on her flesh ripples a tiny shiver across. he moves closer to her, though she's sure he's still sleeping. his face twitches where a strand of her hair dances over it. she drags the curls in brief meticulous patterns over his face, now a map of tremors, scrunches and disapproving closed-eye glances. she begins to write something, using the hair as a brush. he sniffs and wakes, eyes open, shoulders tensed, propping himself into a half-sitting position.

she is incredibly sad that she didn't finish writing.

she wanted to know what it said.
.
.

Error upon waking.

she searches the edge of the curtain for a sliver of light in the dark. the room's only illumination is the faulty VCR. she struggles in the blankets, twined so skillfully tight by sleep. the dreams are exhausting.
so perhaps today she'll wake. she'll swing her white legs over onto the floor, sit up, pry apart her eyelids and stagger naked into the sunlight. but it's still dark. can it hurt to fall back into dreaming beside him? will the ache in her head and muscles get any worse, for having indulged in this vague romanticism? she knows her time's running out, the sun will push its hard rays past the glass someday soon, and then she won't be the only one to go through this hazy morning ritual. his well-loved lashes will flutter open, he'll roll his shoulders and yawn fiercely. he'll turn onto his side for a few more moments of rest.
then he'll see what she's become. while he's slept through these years of peace.
she's sure he won't forgive the scars on her face and chest, won't understand why such heat radiates from her ribs. why she kept him unconscious for so long.will she be able to silence him in any of the old ways? lying the length of her body along his and stealing the protestations from his mouth? hiding in the bedsheets and humming to herself? anything?
she doubts it. and so every morning, in the untotal darkness, she decides to hold her breath. lay back down in the hollow on her side of the bed. turn onto her stomach, rest her cheek on her arm and close her eyes. go back to him, where she can control what her lover sees.
where he doesn't hate her sort of lucidity.
.
.

Past the time for sleep.

they wake us, one by one she comes to our beds and we are lined up in the upstairs hallway. the light that slants through the window is a colour of white i've never seen before. a fat moon hangs outside, too heavy to be suspended for long in the clear night.
i wait for it to fall and roll down the hill, crashing into the trees.

"i'm leaving. your father and i are getting a divorce. we need to know who you each want to live with."
her eyes are pink like white rabbits' eyes and full of red spiderwebs.

i am eight and know what divorce is. i'm used to scenes like this in daytime, but never like this. i shut up, as usual. i count the numbers of friends i have whose parents are dead or divorced.

"what is divorce?"
my brother is almost five. i knew by that age. he's so stupid, and he keeps sucking on his fat little fist. i think he's asking just for something to say. i bite the inside of my cheek and check to see if the moon's crashed yet.

"it's when we live apart. when we're not married. when someone realizes they don't have to live in hell anymore."
she hardly ever swears except when her voice goes loud and screaming. only to be heard, she says. only to him.

he sits on the landing at the bottom of the stairs. i can see the purple of his shirt and hear his laboured breathing. he can't breathe if he yells too much. the doctor says he should lose weight. i almost ask her if she's leaving because he's fat. i'm not an idiot, i know what goes on.
john looks like he's about to cry. no one goes to comfort him. that's the way it is. cory darts his eyes over to me to see if i want to hold his hand. but even through his sleepiness he knows it doesn't bother me much anymore.

i know she keeps a suitcase packed. and i'm pretty sure she'll leave us all. and i don't know what i'm supposed to say.

they make such a big deal out of the fact that i'm the only girl; shane cory and john always belong to dad. it's just a rule. they ask his permission and sleep in the big tent with him when we go camping. i have to ask her for things, sleepovers, new shoes. so i belong to her because i'm a girl.
but she's not very nice. i'd rather live with dad, even if he is getting fat.

"well? you're old enough to tell us what you want, all of you. shane's 11, he's practically a teenager."
her pink eyes are hard. i wonder vaguely if the sky is frozen and if that's what keeps the moon up.

"i'm just barely eleven. my fucking birthday was yesterday. today's *dad's* birthday, for christ's sake. can't you let him enjoy one day?"
he curses and gets into fights at school and our father taught him to drywall and paint after he punched a hole trhough one of the downstairs walls.
little cheers bubble up in my mind as i hear him say 'fuck.'

her hand comes down out of the air like a knife, or a jet, or something. lands loudly on his face. on his pale freckled skin the mark shows like a wound. all bloody. i wonder if you can just bleed out your pores like that, without a cut. maybe the moon will tell me.

we stand there in silence. holding our breath like one pair of lungs. waiting to see what dad does. nothing. he stays sitting at the bottom of the stairs, john starts to cry, shane looks like he's going to push her. i can't see cory.

i turn towards the window and see him disappearing out it, onto the roof. i think he's curious about the moon, too.
.
.

Not overtop.

my eyes open violently, with a banging sound, like slamming doors.  my shoulders are trembling, trying to support the weight of my wet hair and heavy skull. i'm breathing the quick shallow breaths of a thief. don't know which direction is the one back towards the village. i'm huddled in the cool damp underbrush, the thick waxy leaves spotting my dress with dew. the insects haven't come back yet but the frogs are streaking bright colours down the treetrunks. i reach out for them with my eyes, then close them, half-hoping it'll make me invisible in this dark. i don't want him to find me. i'm terrified and wet and still slick with sweat from the noonday sun that snuck through the canopy to make me dizzy.

he sent me out into this giant forest. rainforest. i always thought that was funny...in the forest the branches are woven so close together up in the heights that it get less rain than anywhere else.
in dreamt i could walk on them with butterfly steps when i was four. for nearly a year i had the dream, over and over, just before waking. my mother caught me trying to scale the trees with my fat black hands.
the trunk bigger around than me. my small round hands were useless, big dark mushrooms, my fingers had no strength and i cried out in the impotence that only children feel.

my mother held me and smiled so that her teeth exploded white across her face, like the quarter-moon coming out at night. she asked if i thought i was a frog or a monkey. i tried to tell her but she understood that i dreamt i was a spider. i don't know how she came to that conclusion, but she's called me tree-spider ever since i can remember.

i'm not a spider. i'm not a frog or a monkey. i just wanted to walk on the canopy, not under it, up where the sun rests at night. he laughed at me when i mentioned it this morning. pulled me in closer to kiss my spider face he called it. it might've been the heat, i don't know. or the mad swarming of flies in my ears. but i pushed him and ran, and everything he yelled sounded like thunder. and i ran further. the wind picked up and pushed me like a leaf, and when he started after me my feet found wings and i think it's strange and sad that i'm trapped here, farther under the treetops than ever. and he's in my house, eating the noon meal i made, lying in the shady corner where we make our bed.
i just want to go home.
.
.

Dustmotes.

the light tumbled past the doorway, more than fell, it rushed towards the warmth of the floorboards.
he waited there, calm, for me to wake.  Not sure how long he was there as i slept, but my eyes opening
landed on him - an outline body in the dust and as i looked down i felt myself become the light and saw
why it raced towards him.
"what are you thinking?"  he grins that half-lazy smile up at me,
compensating for the angle of his view.
"thinking that you're a shadow.  and the light wants to swallow you up,
because you're beautiful."
"so you want me to be eaten by photons?"  more smiles, a trace of mocking,
to ease the discomfort of my compliments.
"no...i just see them coming for you...they've got good taste."
"mmmm."  he sticks his tongue out as if to ctahc the beams like snowflakes.
i walk to the door and close it.

        he's sitting here, now, cross-legged on the floorboards, the
indigo threads in his grey shirt sparking like tiny lightning fragments.
do they come in bits?  i gather them up in my imaginary fingers, and stop
staring in my part-second glances.
"i don't know if i dream anymore."  it stumbles out of my mouth.
"you know you sound like you're being monitored...are we stuck in another
artfilm?"
"i think so.   man, we've been here for years now, you know that."
"it depends on your perspective." his mind begins to work in front of me.
i watch it more.  it bites at me, teases me into his reality, and i start
to...become his reflection and fall into myself.  this closeness is
merging so that i'm not sure how much of him exists to become....
"i want out of this.  where are we?"  sad?  yes.  too tired to struggle, i
nurse the small thought that if we touch, if we lie down naked one more
time we'll wake up with our skin entwined and never be able to leave each
other.  that the ends of his dark hair will flow into the auburn of mine
and our eyes will kiss until they fuse, blind.  and we will not only be
one being, one circuit, one whole, but that in our transformation we will
become unrecognizable, and lose the humanity that makes us beautiful.
that makes us want.  and if we have each other, i will be as ugly to him as
he will be to me.
"out of what?  why?"  his face shifts, confused.
i collapse into his chest and drown in the scent of his cologne.
.
.

Airborne flavours.

he has two-dimensional pale green eyes. flat, without any outside pigment. they have memorized the lines of her body, so that they perfectly recreate her in the dark. she teases him about stigmata everytime they kiss and the inside of his lip starts to bleed -- love is tied to the taste of metal, so much so that she starts to believe that their passion is a machine. she feels gears shift and reawake when they come together like this, crushing their clothes in the collision.

*

she is watching him fall asleep for the last time. the moon washes everything white: the blankets, the bedside table, the shadows along his jaw. her breath builds brief clouds as it hits the cold air that sneaks into the room. she doesn't want to pretend she understands this. she wants to curl up in the suspected warmth of his body ... sees mist rising off his skin as she peels back the bedsheets, him becoming an amber pillar of steam. she doesn't want to leave him here again. she wants to fall asleep and never wake to this turmoil. she hates how his eyes devour her, as his hands conquer all her protected inches of flesh; she wants to hurt him whenever his smile claims her and her stomach flutters against her ribs. this is not the way she'd imagined paris.

*

the moon is hiding as she leaves the dark to its own devices.
.
.

Surrenders and shattered glass.

i come to him like a vandal or a thief.  with still hands i pull the blankets off
his sleeping body and fold them neatly.  when he shivers in the draft from the
windowsill i warm him with my breath, leaning over him and humming hot air onto
the places where his clothes have left skin bare.

he doesn't move much. and his sleep roars through the room like a lion. the walls
are pulsing in response to the savage machines struggling in his chest. i don't
remember him being this still; it's a collage of nights turning and shifting,
fitting bodies together and tearing them delicately apart. his tiny bed, maybe.
could've been my kinesis telegraphing itself to him, vibrations running through
his muscles, in such close proximity.  like tremors. tiny earthquakes.

i'm afraid of this blue fire in behind my eyes. i close them but it becomes
brighter. i'm afraid of him, myself. i don't know. there are times, when i will
buy a book just to read his words and learn to hate him. but it all falls to
nothing. they almost always hold me in them....
when they don't? last night i went to the book store and purchased his latest slim
volume. in the middle there was a poem, at the end of chapter six.  i was on the
subway, coming home, and it stopped me. in a jealous rage i tore it out. then kept
bisecting the pieces until there was a flurry of confetti on the seat, the floor,
my shoes and one or two pieces tucked into the cuff of my pants. i tried to shake
them out. a mad woman, another fucking lunatic. like they were burning through
the fabric, putting more scars on my legs.

whenever i look at my imperfections i see him. i see him tracing the hundreds of
scars, the angry bruises, my dark grey soul, thoughtfully. like there are jewels.
like this ugliness is valued, in some country, for its usefullness or strength
or preservative properties or something that i can't quite grasp. i have two new
scars that he hasn't seen. i wanted to bring them to him to be divined.
explained. made beautiful. but.

but he is gone. he is lost in a city of glass and a crystal shell of dreams. and
all i can think, at this moment, as i watch him, is...nothing.

i've found him. i've finally come to him like he asked, those times, years ago. in
warmer seasons. i've come exposed and blindfolded and willing to leap.

but i am a creature of fire, not air. they were wrong. and the flame is consuming the
oxygen so that there is little room for second-thoughts.

i stay until his breathing stops.  and leave.
.
.

Seven kinds of leaving.

In the middle of the night i came to you, all shaking hands and machine-gun kisses. i know that. you don't. in your sleep i'm not sure you felt my weight on the edge of the bed, or the raindrop goodbyes my mouth scattered over your hot skin; i was careful as i peeled the blanket off to expose the parts i'll miss the most...the little valley just inside of each jutting hipbone, the inside of your elbows where the blue nestles calmly.

~

the door weighed a thousand pounds, give or take 126. i may or may not have been supporting my whole weight on the handle as i struggled to pull it shut. the nights here are wet, did you realize? the invisible mist hovering in the air must've gotten itself caught in the hinges. i pulled and pulled. then i sat down on the front step, covered my face with my hands, and my quiet ladylike tears pooled in my lap. my sightless eyes were swimming in my eyeholes. the dark wouldn't let me in, then.

~

i chose to walk for over two hours to get home last night. bus driver compassion was just tooo much to bear. and my feet were making promises of toast and distraction to my head. i'm not sure she believed them, but she let them have their left-right-left fun. all the cars on the highway slowed down so drastically as they came near that i thought they were going to stop completely, offering rides to the damsel in distress, or trying to pay me for sex, or ask directions. i don't know. i sped up each time to compensate for their deceleration.

~

i don't know where i went. i walked and walked, but never got home. at one point i'm almost sure i stumbled through a familiar park, on the canal, and wanted to curl up at the foot of a huge tree with cracking bark and sleep. but i don't know if i'll ever sleep again.

i'm sorry.
.
.

Second Sight.

i see myself in violet shades of you,
molecules purpling at the very thought
of turning to a subtler quiet hue
and taking in the wreakage that you've wrought;
you leave me daily down here in the sands
of various deliverances and dream,
i curl up nightly in your shaking hands
and build myself a starry-eyed regime
where Neptune is my seventh house and more
and Venus hides behind her glacier veil
and Saturn whispers what my vision's for
and clouds of fairytale and fate set sail.
        the morning breaks destiny gently, here
        and we two shine, in the dome of our tears.
.
.
Bedside Solace.

and so i stopped
and thought and thought -
wondered where my mind would take me -
but then you whispered,
considered a kiss,
but decided against it as it might wake me.
and i was one more dreamer
with lips left alone.
.
.

I dreamt.

i dreamt i was dying
lying in a red rain
(puddled on the pillows, warm)...
reading the remnants of words
i'd sent out to be cleaned,
shuffling through the bits of glass
left from david and the mirror;
(i found tiny pin-pricks in my bed.)....
it was soft
i was a mist
there were angels waiting
behind my closed eyes, as
i remembered stories
tried to fight back the black:
so hard and humid.
i tried, as i lay there,
to build my death around me
so it would be the grandeur
he'd whispered to me of;
a bit of light, some calls and doves
perhaps a bit of harpsichord,
but no.
there was nothing there but tired sighs
and the feel of being dropped.....
no freedom, no revelation, no peace.
more sleep.
more dreams.
.
.

Origami.

i dreamt
in a whirlwind cloud
that i'd become a paper boat
sailing lost down tiny streams
the water ran its fingers through
until i gasped and fell
further
tumbling
feather-soft gravity sounds
as i went deeper down.
.
.

Dreams of Bombs.

the tumult held its breath,
the crowds stopped crowding 'round,
i held hands with death
as the big boy hurtled down...
quiet moved to fill the space
left by the fallen men,
supernova tried to erase;
they dropped the bomb again.
.
.
 

Promises.

i will not use the blood on my hands to paint pictures;
in the pulse-point memory of dream
she slips quietly between the walls
can't remember how she became.

i will not use the words in my mouth to kill soldiers;
in the bluegreen light of night
we dance terribly through slow-motion
no one remembers which way did he go.

i will not use the sparks in my eyes to ruin angels;
in the haphazard space of grey inside
he offers her failing hand upon hand
he doesn't speak into her sadness.
.
.

Dystopia.

pinpricks
almost invisible
decorate her hands and arms
small bloody footprints follow

alive
writhing in gentle circles
the night stabs through
knitting dreams too close to skin
she becomes part
a web of wool and girl and vision

the morning won't last
next time
the process furthered
the light won't get in

she'll stay
calm and lifeless
struggling against nothing
watching breath flutter
against the guaze.
.
.

Unbecoming.

and i'm becoming
one silently exhaled breath
billowing outward.

watch me dissolving:
a quiet sigh of relief
as i fall asleep.
.
.

You were there at 3 a.m.

and as you surfaced from your dream
reaching in the dark,
i made wishes:
to be more than paper
more than silent words -
something to hold you close
dance you in comforting heat.
i try to see you always home safely
but  know i'm far away.
.
.

Strange NightShapes.

i dreamt. 
shifting shades of blue and grey
wove through his black hair
as it settled about his shoulders
and down his glowing back.
fluorescent yellow striped light
cast his fluid shadow
it ran into the ground
as he bent down --
picking me up in one onyx hand
my buddha lover
made me small
and the wind made a face
the silence froze in static haze
and he watched and smiled
and swallowed me.
.
.

Time waiting at the door.

Time could never be seen in the dream
it waited, hushed, outside
as they passed nights breathless,
entangled;
darkness suspended Fate.

But the lovers knew
in the seconds between inhalations --
daybreak is an everlasting foe,
not to be won.

Each struggled with the gods of stars,
moon goddesses, begging,

Washed hands in fountains, bowed heads,
prayed to icons;

The two lay in the dark
alert to the streetsounds
counting pulses
casting no shadows
awake
waiting.
.
.

Unfurling into mercury.

he's laid his head down on the pillowslip, stumbling through the small dark to find where he'd left his bed. stray auburn hairs collect there on the white, spiderwebbing across the expanse to weave together, and they curl knowingly about the sides of his face as he sleeps. they insidiously enter in through his pores as he dreams, climbing vining their way into his nightscape.
his dreamworld bursts through with lithe shadows and a dot of mercury following him through the streets, clinging to the lapel of his coat. he takes it into his hand and tries to breathe it in, hoping that its the spirit of the girl. twisting his face up into vague monstrosities at his own ridiculousness. as he laughs in pity and derision the tiny pool of mercury is propelled from his cupped hand and hits the pavement. he hurries after it, scurrying downhill through gravity or fear, and watches as the street swallows it up.

when he wakes he is tied to the bed, in the dark. alone.
.
.

Long-lost words.

i am in a dream again. this half-floating feeling as the wet air drugs the rocky insides of my lungs. the water is so warm it makes my head spin, almost scalding, bright lines differentiate the parts of me already immersed from my more cowardly inches of flesh. skin struggles against the quick draft of cold air as you come in. i shiver for seconds, surprised, under your hands; you tell me you're just here for a moment, to remember me naked.

and now you're shyly pushing the curtain aside. sad black diamonds in your eyes as you step into my waterfall.

again we're sitting propped against the smooth green walls -- they heat up so fast there's no cold left in the world as i slip back into the shell of your arms. i give myself up to one more day of indoor rain.

how long have we been lying empty? i want to spend these last few minutes before you go asking, searching my important necessary questions at you. but your fingertips are performing a fragile ritual as you meticulously soap my pink body. careful to not miss the curve of my ankle, or where shoulderblades almost touch. i'm holding my breath and swallowing it all and crushed underneath my heart's great truth:

i will never leave this moment.
i never could turn.
.
.

Invective.

she hurls her body over the edge.  into that fog hovering over dream.  it's time.
it's almost surreal the way it comes upon her; the too-vivid tide of energy surging up and overtaking her nerves. she watches herself as she tears him apart.

in the beginning there was breath. nothing is official without blood. the only words of his she kept. she grinds them into his wounds, the sharp granules reawakening the senses he's gladly numbed. she thinks of new ways to repay him, every time she cuts herself with the point of her chisel, each time her legs find hard obstacles in the dark, whenever she cries her lungs arid.

now she is an artist in a new medium. instinct, and human desire. a creationist with a flair for disease. destruction is her new calling, and she welcomes the coppery taste.

he'd forgotten how to feel this much.

she remembers for him.
.
.

Bluespace........

So that's the ticket: right here right now forever....i dreamt I was adrift
on some collosal wave of dark-blue light, and when I came down for air, the
world had fallen from under my feet.   The clock beside me glows two
menacing red tens against the black.  Binary logic and fire and digital
clock radios haunt me in the mornings.

Rollling out of the bed, sinking onto the floor in a dizzy haze -- the
previous evening swam through the backs of my eyes, swirling conversations
and drinks and off-key notes out of nothingness.  The depth of the carpet
surprises me and pulls me in faster than the waterbed had at three a.m.  I
am drowning again adjacent to my watery grave, in dolls^R hair and
ripped-apart sweaters....

Climbing the stairs to get to the light bending around the corner, a piece
of bread and a cup of coffee?  No coffee, still hadn't found the secret to
the stomach.  So I stumble to the telephone hoping to dial up directory
assistance and find out what in hell happened last night.

I distinctly remember seeing him draw the razor across his wrists under the
table as he quietly read a book, and wondering again why he was here and
who he was.  All the angels and the madmen find this house, and so it
always seemed inconsequential when the strangers paraded through the
sanctuary, one more pair of footsteps and fingerprints left outside the
door.  But he hadn^Rt come with any, having sold them at the cornerstore for
cigarette money.

My midnights combine themselves into a network of hibernations and chaos
delusions and the one warm body against me -- so much so that he has become
the chaos and the sleepy perception, and the cure to it all.  I thought, in
the beginning, that the quiet one had come for him, because they'd had the
same white star near the elbows of their jackets.  Hypotheses and grainy
photographs of cults and underground societies flashed through my headspace
as I watched my lover sleeping, and as I leaned down to kiss him, he
irately brushed my hair away from his unconscious face.  It was any other
morning.

As I entered the kitchen I saw the intruder sitting calmly eating toast.
His hands were bloody and stained his food as he ate it, the curtains
behind him held traces of handmarks with holes near the fingers where the
sunlight blasted through in uncontrolled yellow beams.    He smiled with a
weakness born of his exhaustion as he tallied up his blood loss, and fixed
his stare on my tattoo,  peaking out of my borrowed t-shirt.

"Saturn.  Why would she follow me here?  I thought i'd gotten away from
all that nonsense.  Hm."
He mumbled into the air, or to me, or implicitly to ricochet back into his
own mind, i'm never sure.  Part of his breakfast surrendered and fell to
the scratched wood under his chair.  Following the crumb-trail I noticed
that he'd spent part of the morning carving flowers into the floorboards --
daisies with evil grins and weeping headless roses.  I shuddered with the
realization that he wasn't here for robin.  He was here for me.

Sitting down carefully across the table I looked at him closely for the
first time.  Blond hair blue eyes, the image of emptiness, he brought with
him the realization that humanity creates shells and we can't all be full
of the same substance.  It was like looking into a snowdrift, or a ball of
cotton -- not a person at all, but an assemblage of ivory bits and tissue
paper and fallen pieces of sky.  My enemies have always had those eyes, and
the silent loathing and succeeding pity turned my stomach into knots.
"What do you want?"
MORE SILENCE.
"It's me, isn't it?  Why now?"
He continued to drag his bare foot across the shavings covering the floor.
After nearly ninety-seven seconds he moved his mouth to speak.  His
thoughts crowded into the centre of his face as he pushed out the words;
"I was told to come and kill you.  It's necessary, i'm sorry.  Always."
The refrigerator began to hum loudly, startling me, trapped in the wake of
the sentence i'd heard in my memories of sleep for twenty years.  Standing
up, I hit the ground.

There is something I should tell you: I don't deserve all this.  My time in
solitary was an illusion written and directed by myself, i've
surreptitiously wrestled my destiny from fate and committed the gravest of
errors.  I told the mirror I was invincible, and then shattered it so no
one would know.  The days pass quickly into oblivion, the air flowing
through keyholes and windchime recordings of children^Rs songs.  But there's
nothing in reality that i've fought for and in those seconds the knowledge
came to me that I could only cheat for so long.  I am a liar and a lunatic.

"It's not Saturn, though.  What were you talking about?"
He looks up, disturbed.
"How did you know about that?"
"I don't."
The resignation fells his expression, dragging it down so that his
half-smile melts into the flowers underneath the table.  He struggles to
stretch his voice, to bypass the barriers and set up my pictures for me
with will and mental strangulation.   Small terror hits me as I remember
who'd done that.  The man slumps to the floor, a pile of rags and ash and
sadness shaped like a man in his mid-twenties.

Robin is standing behind him, his feelings swirling across the space
between us.  Emotions sorting and categorizing and trying to fit through
this.  We'd argued once about reality's construction, and now it comes to
me that we are, not just in metaphors but flesh and language, different
places completely.  It wasn't clear what he'd done, if anything, to the man
in the daisies.
"Holly, what's going on?  How did he get here?"
I shrug and attempt to explain to myself why they'd worn the same stars.  I
don't want to believe what the man was here to tell me.
"Did he hurt you?  Dear?"  His voice is concerned and maybe it's simply a
trick of the light.  Blue flashes across his vision.
"Why?  You understand what i'm asking."
"But i'm not.  I promised you once and it's still standing.  It's just
white, and places don't mean anything.  The past crumbles?  That's how you
phrased it?  Well it doesn't exist.  Neither does he."

But I was never quite sure of anything again, even in the dark.
.
.

At the seams.

        her hands started to unravel.  just the tiniest bit, at the base
of the thumb, her seams stretched that small bit beyond acceptibility.
and so she opened, torn and wrenched into a mockery of mouths -- her eyes
glistening as the tears stood out on the whites.  the morning sun
witnessed it.
        i was there, hiding in the mirror, as the red-haired girl awoke
from her quiet sleep to find herself being shed, skin the thin papyrus of
david's underfeet.  my eyes were enthrallled and crying as she tried to
scream, silent, thinking it a dream.  i watched from behind her vision as
he raised the knife, and the car started slipping precariously backwards.
i watched the silver rain as it fell across her breasts and shoulders.  i
wanted out, i forced my lids unshut:
                that's when it began, and that's when it ended; a
beginning is never official without blood, and so i bled as the knife slid
into me, too, catching on my mended rib.  i watched my fingers try to hold
the redness in and subtly stain the black bedclothes...i took in the
shapes i drew as i stumbled, bloody handprints on the walls.  and i turned
to reach the doorknob, confronting the glass bolted to the wall -- and she
was hiding there, wearing my face and staring at me, watching as i opened.
.
.

TrainDreams.

        As i fall back, stitching dreams together, still half-lucid, the world is
pouring by through windowpanes like pictures...i once tried to count them like
they were something i could keep, i'm a fool in the best of situations.  i wanted
to bring something beautiful back to him, something to make up for the way
life turned its back.  we all need that, don't we?  don't we deserve it?
                fidgeting again, my fingers tie themselves in knots.
trying not to let tao bleed out the tips...the thought, one more stupid
mumble, makes me happy, so i'm sure, again, that they were right and i
must be insane.   more agains trapped in commas -- gods, i probably am
going crazy.  this is why i don't drink coffee.
                        the conducter walks by and there's a bit of jam on
the elbow of his suit and as i start to stand to tell him the tray on my
lap slides off with a clatter of silverware and plates and one or two
poems...the other people in the car stare at me and one old lady, who my nightsounds
have just woken, shakes her finger in slow-motion.
                       i try to get the words out but somehow now they've
been usurped by the moment and "jam"  and the last syllable of "elbow"
are all that i squeeze out my mutilated lips.  talking in metaphor again?
they're not mutilated, just twisted and almost laughing as the other side
of my brain runs to apologize.  there's marmalade spilled down my leg and i
collapse in a fit of giggles and i'm certain they think i'm going in the
wrong direction.  i should be going _towards_ the asylum.  but they're all
wrong.  i wish i could make them understand.  i wish i could write a song
or an epic to entertain them, let them glimpse the shallow side of my
world.  but no.

        staring at the girl
        you are fishes in the air
        what does that make me?

haikus won't save the world.  i need a drink.
.
.

Washed up on dry land.

she woke up underwater. soft burning feelings, like a hot fizzing liquid in her chest. her mouth opened wide like her head would split, like a snake unhinging jaws to eat. she realized where she was a half-second too late, gagging on the influx of sea water.
she made it to the surface, sputtering, scared, unsure. the night wasn't any help. no answers. paddling forward, her feet found the bottom and she stood, trembling. her winter coat and boots weighing her down so that she stooped to half her height. barely above the water, the woman removed her coat and watched it sink to the bottom. wanted to see a shark swim into it and off to the opera. nope.

as she came to the shore, her eyes scanned the scene. the sky blue black, frozen white sparks. fat ice-grey moon. she couldn't even tell what ocean it was, where. she was cold and lost and confused. she sat in the sand and unwound the seaweed from her legs.
.
.

Not Awake Adventures.

        she woke up, hand scrambling wildly on the surface of the bedside
table, searching for coins or cigarettes or the lamp, she wasn't quite
sure.  the radio alarm clicked on, the usual ten seconds after it was
supposed to, and she was assaulted my mick jagger screaming about something.
a thump as the water glass was knocked down onto the carpet.
        "shit"
the woman swung her legs over the edge of the bed, finally found her pack
of camels in the center of the puddle she'd just created, and picked out
one of the drier ones.  twenty-two seconds searching for matches, the
first drag and sputtering cough of the morning.
        "christ.  my head, i don't want to go out today..."
she whined without the benefit of a listener more succeptible to her than
she herself was.  leaving the cigarette burning forlornly in the shadowy
bedroom, she went towards the bathroom.

        after the shower she felt a little cleaner, the smells of smoke
and alcohol no longer clinging to her hair, and she alost hummed as she
picked a shirt and pants out of the 'not quite dirty' pile on the floor.

but her head still felt like hell was pounding through it, the skull
ricocheting its own noises back and forth.  she rummaged through her bag
and came up with two forgotten valium.
        "anything in a pinch..."
she mumbled to herself as she swallowed them dry, the bitter powder trail
weaving down her throat.  the pills would help eventually, but the pain,
now, was too distracting.  she turned on the t.v. and was greeted by the
face of jerry springer half-concealed behind the ass of the fattest
stripper she'd ever seen.  shaking her head, she pulled on her black
sweater and jeans, a pair of mismatched work socks, and started lacing her
boots.  the woman growled as she attempted to shove her left foot into a
still-half-laced doc, and then set about untangling it.  a shleppy bell
canada commercial came on and she remembered her discarded cigarette, for
some reason, the two being linked.  she looked at the clock.
        "fuck!  man, i'm gonna be late..."
forgetting the trailing laces she grabbed the essentials and ran the two
blocks to the bus station, digging through her pockets for her ticket as she
went.  the cars splattered brown slush against her legs and jacket.  she
wondered if she'd locked the door.  she coughed, her stomach growled.

        arriving at the gate just in time she squeezed past the people to
a window seat and slumped there, her head still throbbing, her breath
coming in gasps.  after a while, she slept.

        the bus pulled into Montreal and the tires hummed as they hit dry
pavement, jolting the woman awake.  she gathered her things and trudged
off, buying a coffee at the station cafe and looking for her contact, so
she could get the stuff and catch the next bus back.  an hour and
thirty-one minutes passed, flipping through newspapers left on the
chair by strangers, the cold coffee still half-there.  she felt the chill
and damp there in all her clothes from the hurried trip, and decided
to forget the whole thing, fuck it, who needs it?  she could live without
the damn seeds, she'd done it before.
        but then she saw him, sauntering in that south american cheesy way
of his, looking around over the tops of his sunglasses for her.  she stood
and faced Fernando.  he scanned her from top to toe and shook his head
disapprovingly.  she grinned brokenly at him, challenging him to say a word.
        "so...you're here."
        "you're late.  i was going to leave."
        "but i'm here now, and i have it."
her pulse quickened, she held herself in check.
        "so give it to me, you've got your money."
he handed her a small packet, plain brown, no customs sticker, that had two
simple, euphoric words pencilled onto it:
Aenid's Fern.
and she turned and walked quickly back through the terminal, clutching the
seeds in her fist.
.
.

Dreaming Predatory Cats

so today is his birthday. my only real close-to-me lion. well, the one i'd foolishly let get too close, inside. every year this day remembers him for me, hurling me through strange dreams that begin at precisely 12:01. my lover woke me at 12:40 last night to gently ask what was wrong. 'a multitude of small animal sounds,' he said 'coming from your sleep.'
i didn't know.
i never have, when it came to him...we've never known anything.
my lion devoured me when i bravely placed my head into his mouth. he said it was just an illusion, something to give the folks at home a show, that there was tea and television waiting in the den. it took me over a year to crawl back out of the heat in his throat, past those terrible teeth. i have scars that i wear like salvation-army medals.
and today is his day. he comes to me. for this one month and twenty-four days we exist in the same age, the same bracket of time. if i see him on the street i will buy him beer and we'll carefuly dance around mention of old times, and i may even fall a little back in love with him. but i won't see him. i've stopped knowing what part of the world he's in. it's safer that way.
i don't really want him in my life. not even the part that went before. but there are no take-backs.
.
.

Infatuation Dreams.

        in the past two days the world has fallen in love with her.  as
she steps out the door in the mornings, rose petals left there to freeze
overnight shower down on her head like red ice-candies.  letters arrive,
frantic and devoted, in her postbox, and those of her nieghbours when hers
gets too full.  her neighbours love her so much that they forward the mail
and forget the inconvenience immediately.  the crossing-guard always
carries her through streetlights, any direction, anytime.  the hour and
minute-hands of the clock sometimes stop turning in order to reach out
towards her hair as she drifts by, dodging lovers' proclamations.  now she
stays indoors.  and hides her scars from mirrors.  the mirrors tell the
truth -- and that is why she wants the world to die.  the whole of it is a
sick joke perpetuated by societies of madmen:  she is hideous and mean and
impetuous and strange.  and that is no reason to love a girl like her.
.
.

Night's Prisoner.

so i wake into the dark
as air hovers
a damp blanket
over skin...
        i'm not sure i can breathe here anymore.
and the tremors that i'm feeling
underneath my nerves
are company
the one hope of sensation....
        i don't know where i left myself.
the brink of my disease
is trapped inside my mind
        headed towards the exit sign
        forever red behind the eyes
the taste of an idea
is wrapped in curtain lace
        hands run over patterns
        purgatory left in braille.
i can't move.
can't think of going anywhere.
i hold my body prisoner
just below the air.
.
.