The Floor. And What Now?

When I have nothing left in life, which happens every few years or so, revolution cycle occluded from my conscious periphery but ever in place, I walk.

I walk out of my way to pass the time and accumulate sun milk and asphalt pheromones and salute the neighborhood cats, just so I can stimulate the melatonin nestled in the nether folds of my brains, so I can sleep through the night.

A good night's sleep gives me the strength to try and tie again all the tiny, frayed strings that make up the foundation of a life livable. The strings meet in fragile knots that titter under the weight of EXPERIENCE.

It's been a long time since I've walked. Like, really walked. Like, walked to the precipice and stuck a nostril over and took a hard whiff. Every time I wandered out too far these last few months, my (now former) boyfriend would call me back. His deep, backthroat notes cut through the smog and to create an aural trail for me to retrace. Love is a ground, only when you look too close, you see the tiny threads it's thatched from.

Similarly, I haven't written in a long while, though I also write more than ever. As a reporter, I think in pricks and jabs – one sentence paragraphs trimmed of any winter weight. My words don't walk any more, they are hurled from one place to the next.

Hopefully, in the absence of a floor (love), I can learn to walk for length again. And my words can learn to wade. 

Or: per - I - pat(h)etic. 

  

Poems From Uncomfortable Days

These poems are from the back-hands of days gone and good riddance. Let them steep, without names, in this inky landfill.

((It's just that gutless pang when love comes to visit

That feeling of petals and crocodile skin

When love stoops to whisper

That everything before was a whisper

That all those tender looks before were just the breath between scenes

“Look up,” it exhales into your ears.

Love is really a creeping thing

Moss behind the tree trunk's face

Shading shade like a mother's thigh

Pouring oil into a rosemary salve

Pouring oil across a bare chest

It isn't bricks or a scale off a butterfly's wing

It's a sticky flame that laps behind your lids

While you sleep and think of other things

Look up, and do it truly

To a different kind of condensation

Breathing through your heart)))

= = =

You can't hide in that flesh

Its moldy surface will give way

To the soft Kleenex underneath

It also happens to be my flesh.

Yes, that dirty old bath mat.

That threadbare, musty rug of skin

Can't wear it out,

Because, be honest --

What will the neighbors think?

Little white soft spots give way to bigger tears

Tears that turn to black, fuzzy tears.

Yes, you've tasted them.

On expired English muffins,

Between gymsweated toes.

And, yes, ever in circles on my back.

Growing outward to cave in.

That seems to be the typical pattern of decay:

False linear progression –

An up, up and away type of excitement,

Followed by a hollow inversion,

Feet above nose

Nose above God.

It's just a funny sort of cartwheel.

You must have seen time lapse videos

Of a deer or zebra carcass being consumed by bugs,

Insects and parasites and friends of sorts.

How the abdomen expands

Until it bursts in crescendo

Typical to the symphony at hand.

My deep red cherries,

Molded from without

My cherries,

Breathing plastic

Warm screams

Did you look though?

At all the papers

On the ground

Molded too

Wild memories

Strewn about

Photos and notebooks

Wild abandon

Leering

The past that forgets the past is happy

Or damned

Or nothing

Because the past dreams too

Of the days between

Of dust on the window sill

Of the time when you were very small

And action potential radiated from your fingers

There aren't any people anymore

There are only ways to avoid them

Back alleys and cherry pits

I have no direction anymore

I let the wind spin me until I'm dizzy

And then I walk forward

Cutting the breeze with no intention but my nose

Intentions dream of the past

But the past is sleeping

Intentions curl up in my abdomen

My adipose tissue blossoms into cherries

And: behold! A deep feast for deep mouths

Mouths dream of a dry place

A dry place dreams of making love

Love dreams of a way out

Even dreams dream, of fucking their mothers.