Dead Pieces
What you gotta do, he told me, is grind these things up and mix ‘em right into
the pitcher, because these fucking things taste just wretched, just horrible.
I’d do anything, I was still playing unidentified pill roulette then, still
licking vodka off the floor for laughs and economy. He’s no good for you. I
was stunned to find, after reading all your journals, how little we actually
know about each other, how wrong you see me. I’m chucking empty bottles at the
side of your house but you won’t look out to see. Nobody ever bothered to tell
me that just because you love someone, no matter how much you may love them,
you cannot make people love you, you have to just give up. We’re sitting on
the hood of my car and talking shit about you, we’re half tempted to piss in
your mailbox. Your hair that summer was the blue of prescription pills, the
color of washed-out summer-ending skies. I talked to your mom and she still
loves me and is willing to play along. You’ll be happier when I leave, but I’m
not exactly ready to go yet. It’s obvious that nothing was said for real, everything
was just bargaining for optimum position. There are joys we will never come
close to. Your little sister keeps hitting on me, the high school standards,
lollipops and low-cut shirts, using her laughing as a reason to touch me. Every
last secret given away, I have come clean, but I solved no problems through
this. We’re asleep in the car in your driveway waiting for morning and waking
up. It’s too bad you’re not a real drinker or else maybe we actually could be
friends. There’s darvon all over the dashboard and empties across the floor.
You never needed to say those things, you knew that you and I were not a thing,
that was your whole pitch. I don’t fuck my friends’ girlfriends just for a joke,
just for the leverage. She’s dancing to something on television, I can kinda
see her through the window, and when she dances her feet leave the ground, arcing
across the room, but these things are beyond my understanding now. We’re soaping
your windows, filling your trees with toilet paper, making runs to the supermarket
for more eggs. You were always a big fan of that am depression music, and that’s
where maybe we can start coming together again. We’re making speeches out on
the road, doing stupid things just to get them out of the way, you could stay
with me forever but that would require sticking around to see this whole thing
through, and you will never come to the door, the closest you got was calling
the cops. It was my first domestic incident and it felt like growing up, even
though I knew better. You cut your hair thinking it’d change your life, you
boarded up your windows so as to enforce your attempts at new paradigms, your
half-assed fashion sense, you nouveau-queerism, your eyes filmed over with unnatural
clouds. One day we’re going to wake up and not be targets anymore, and it’ll
just be the past, but I’m not waiting on that, certainly. The fucking doctor
cut all the tabs in half and I keep losing ‘em every time I open the bottle.
I know you’ve got a life to live. I’m sorry for rooting through your medicine
cabinet, I’m sorry I flipped off your mom, I’m sorry about joking about eating
your dog, and I’m sorry that you couldn’t change me, that I am not a projects.
It’s all in the positioning, all in the timing, and you fail each time on that.
We’re up on your roof, pulling up shingles and throwing the at your neighbor’s
windows. I used to think I loved you, I was certain, but I guess I don’t, even
though I can’t stay away. Relationships never end, they just go into remission.
Look at the fresh-fallen snow and think about how you got from a to b. we’re
trying to fit down your chimney but the booze and sedatives have made that task
much harder, in fact, I’m half-tempted to just let go and fall off, but those
were my younger days, I’m an adult now. You’re on the phone. And there’s probably
something I could say to you, some act that might bridge, but I am through telling
people lies. You never listened anyway. We’re spinning donuts on your front
lawn. One of these days we’ll discover magic and forgetfulness and we’ll be
okay. It’s the time in between that’s killing me, that won’t let me sleep. I
can’t explain my life to anyone. Whatever you needed, is what I said. I will
wait, and convince myself that I do love you. Let me in, I’ve got high-caliber
whiskey in the car, I’ve got a new haircut, I’ve got insomnia like you would
never fucking believe. We’re peeing through the open window in your garage.
You still talk, but I can’t hear you now. You can still teach me how to levitate
in dance, and I can feed you on vodka and darvon, and we’ll almost be in love.
(12:06.05.19.2005) [/alpha] #