1/25/14 9:33am – 2/28/14 9:12am
made forgettable
he made forgettable what they all thought
wouldn’t be possible to be forgot
one day he’s timeless and the next he’s not
to his own choir that preached what he taught
it’s just a symptom of his misery
their slowly fading muscle memory
it’s no secret time will do it to me
but he walked them straight to eventually
1/8/14 10:06pm – 2/13/14 8pm
the son above me
(dedicated to patricia iii)
(she made her point of view)
the son above me it doesn’t love me
it haunts me only to curse my life
by my hand it died but my god i’ve tried
to be a good mother, nurse, and wife
the son above me just the sight of me
is enough to make it’s stomach turn
and all of it’s fuss over “nauseous us”
has convinced me that mine too should churn
the son above me it can’t be of me
and if it is god give me a sign
by my push it cried but nature it lied
the son above me is no son of mine
the son above me will never love me
and it’s only it’s cruel point i’ll miss
so let’s close this chapter for ever after
i too can’t go on living like this
my son above me isn’t it lovely?
the light that’s come to mean crossing over
but you’d rather fight than go towards that light
that’s still calling your name to red rover
1/7/14 8:48pm – 1/13/14 7:03pm
in the mood to sew
((my stomach is killing me (not you))
i can hear the bell that tells
me my time has come to go
but what’s here is only fear
of the unsoftenable blow
this feeling has a ceiling
and keeps from me what it knows
where it ends is below when
exactly it is i’ll go
but what’s above shouldn’t be of
any concern to me though
when life pauses of natural causes
we still say it can’t be so
i rang the bell knowing well
it’d all but deliver the blow
know if i’m sent was no accident
if by my hand or her’s i go
—
all this hanging by a thread
has me in the mood to sew
from the something chris bell said
before he himself did go
1/1/14 12:17pm – 1/1/14 1:24pm
fourteen instead of thirteen
(take his ticket as a sign)
(cherry flavor on top iii)
i woke to my first morning of the new year in my close friend’s abroad sister’s vacant bedroom. it was there on her neglected pillow
that i’d instantly fallen asleep after hitting. after i’d been unwilling and unable to make the drive home.
after the transition from new years eve to new years day was completed. after our big production which amounted to a celebration of dating
documents fourteen instead of thirteen was proved a huge success.
after all that somehow i eagerly hopped out of bed with a spring in my step, headed straight to their hallway bathroom, ran the water for an early first shower of the year, and tuned their radio to a classical
music station. which took a while to dial in, but was well worth the wait and wasted water when i finally
took my first shit of two-thousand fourteen to rites of spring by stravinsky.
it was immaculate. it was a long, steamy, well deserved shower on my friend’s parents water bill for the long
new years evening we had had a couple hours earlier.
i consciously made an effort to take in and enjoy washing my body with soap as to say i was symbolically wiping
away the previous year to make room for the new one. even taking the time to make room behind my ears.
after the last drops of soap and shampoo dripped down the drain i turned off the faucets as the saying goes, in a
“righty tighty” fashion, but was unsure of myself in the way one can only be unsure of his or herself when performing a routine task in a
strange home. i stepped out into the man-made fog from my long shower, walked straight to their bathroom’s
body length mirror, and wiped where i guessed my face would be if the glass had
not been made such a steamy blur.
“my first reflection of this year”, i said aloud while staring back at a surprising amount of five o’clock shadowing from my stubble-filled pores. i wondered hoping, would this be the year i’d finally be able to grow a beard?
i put on my pants with fingers crossed and stepped out into the quiet calm of my friend’s parent’s home. i tip-toed back into the storage space that was his sister’s room and excitedly finished getting dressed back up into my same
change of clothes meant for yesterday’s occasion. with my left-overs look complete i pushed onward still for what i knew if it were possible would be my cherry flavor on top of that first day.
having been meticulously prepared for the previous night
i had brought a small plastic spray sample of my favorite cologne with every intention of sprucing myself up throughout the eve.
for the second time already with the morning barely upon me, i wondered keeping fingers crossed if there was any left to help start off my year smelling the way i preferred to be smelled. i reached into my jacket pocket past my car keys, past my watch waiting to be reunited with my left wrist and gripped the tiny spray bottle. i pulled it out and up from my pocket in an excited rush straight to my face which made my eyes match my crossed fingers for a brief moment. what looked like three drops remained.
“eureka!”, i shouted more comfortably than i probably should have been in a house not my own. elated to find
them i applied the remaining drops to my right wrist, worked the cologne into my left, and rubbed the invisible wet
remnants onto my neck and jacket. though satisfied i couldn’t help myself and continued with greedy effort trying to squeeze every last
literal drop out of the miniature bottle. much more than i’d anticipated was able to be made use of and very soon i was to a fault smelling the familiar way i preferred to be smelled. feeling put together i crept into my friend’s bedroom to see if my feelings were mutual only to find him still in his bed fast asleep. i caught a glimpse of myself in his bust level mirror hung on the wall. to me i looked like a man ready to start this year off right. i got lost in my head while thinking about myself looking ready to start the year off right and my seemingly marble; taxidermy stuffed eyes wandered from the self-satisfied reflection in the mirror to his chest of drawers directly below. strung upon it were his personal possessions that amounted to a representation of his day to day life and among them was a zippo lighter engraved with his initials. I made an overdue observation that we shared almost the same initials except for being off by one letter. something inside of me told me to pick it up so i did. i stared at his chiseled initials with only crossed eyes repeating them over and over to myself:
C. R. S. C. R. S. C. R. S.
i loved the idea of scratching metal to make something more significant. i popped the lighter’s pleasing to open top that practically begged it and although there was nothing to light i sparked it for sparking’s sake and in the interest of resolving to be more spontaneous in the new year.
i was genuinely surprised to find that the fire that started at my cologne soaked fingers and spread quickly to my
fragrant wrists, neck, and jacket made no sound worth his arrival to fourteen instead of thirteen while it engulfed my body.