eleven-thirty

And that’s why I have to go back
to so many places
there to find myself
and constantly examine myself
with no witness but the moon
and whistle with joy,
ambling over rocks and clods of earth,
with no task but to live,
with no family but the road.

- Pablo Neruda

 

i have travelled, but not much. i have lived, but not much either. perhaps because i always look back. somehow, my gravity has been the past, and pain has been my anchor. i’m not trying to sound emotional. no, far from it. in this, you must believe me. for i am now painlessly suffering from detachment.

 

i go on, i breathe, although i dare not say i live. but i go on; i float as i mindlessly follow my unfamiliar roads. i live. i love. but i don’t hurt. there must be something wrong, surely? or let me feel the dread instead. or hate. or torment. just let me feel anything at all.

 

shall i stop looking back then? must i actually start going back? to where it all began? or to where i started ending? and if so, shall i have the courage to actually examine myself beyond guilt, beyond doubt, beyond faith? in this battle of my self against myself, how shall I ever come out triumphant without also having to lose?

 

-

 

as if

 

i walk each day

 

as if you are my gravity
my sadness personified
depressing, intoxicating
fatally appealing

 

i lay still each night

 

as if you are my quietude
my bittersweet lullaby
flowing veils of forgetful dreams
reminiscent of sleep

 

i move my lips

 

as if you are my confession
my unfaithfulness and devotion
whispering sinful little prayers
to our consenting moons

 

if only to find that i exist

 

as if you are my being
my emptiness and essence
that even in your absence
we are present

 

’til the new moon unhides, in that, too

 

as if you are i
that whenever i am you are
that whoever i become
you have already known.

 

as clear, as brutal, as true.

 

–

happy birthday

\\//,

fixed

tonight i cried. they came uninvited, there was no call. they came freely, like old friends on that most awaited ball. they came comfortably, cozy as brittle fires during fall. they came with authority, commanding without a speck of hesitation. they came – shameless and unbridled.

it was a trance. it was a homecoming. it was a resolution.

tonight i cried. and it felt good.

__

13th

remember today

how i felt betrayed

and tired

and sick

and glad

 

to be

dismayed.

 

remember that day

the 13th of may

ain’t

supposed

to be

today.

 

so remember

today

 

you

left

and

i

stay.

 

 

_

encounters

a musky twilight dawned on me one day.

sitting at my desk, looking out the window, a soft breeze danced with the peeking leaves. outside, it was gray. distant buildings basked in an early morning veil. i could almost imagine the sweet suffocating smell of that cold rush, burning and awakening my skin in its restless slumber.

ah, nostalgia.

i have known many mornings like this, my nocturnal soul mourning the end of each night.

a book in one hand, clumsy fingers gripping its spine, clinging to that insufferable pain of stories unread and unfinished pages, of commas and ellipses for there were no blank spaces yet for periods and exclamations. Question marks perhaps, that stubborn ending which in its very presence actually denies the end.

the sun was almost rising then. coffee cups–always dependable companions throughout the mischievous fortress that was the night–sat beside me, as quiet as my soul, stains all over. something welled up within, almost to the brink, and as hollow as these emptied crucibles was my being.

alas, this morning, in all of its glory, came the periods and exclamations, and question marks still.

a musky twilight–thick, stifling and unforgiving–came down on my soul at daybreak. it came slowly, but not as gently as the rising sun, the awakening that the soul which used to mourn those morns was already gone.

—

staccato

babbles, giggles, hush
whispers, laugh

 

wordless papers,
paperless thoughts,
thoughtless words.

 

down the road, a smirk.
somewhere to go, nowhere in sight
arrows dwindling, meandering desires
a will as certain as the waves

 

that bounce, pounce. drowns

 

in voices surrounding empty chairs,
empty lines, empty rhymes.

 

footsteps outside the door. approaching
louder, each second nearer
heavy luggage dragged, dropping, dropped.
halt. breathe. no, sigh.

 

further, farther, mind’s adrift.

 

turning around
eyes on empty eyes
disguise.

 

 

__

12:43

 

I feel drunk but I’m sober, I’m young and I’m underpaid
I’m tired but I’m working, yeah
I care but I’m restless, I’m here but I’m really gone
I’m wrong and I’m sorry baby

What it all comes down to
Is that I haven’t got it all figured out just yet

I’m sad but I’m laughing, I’m brave but I’m chicken shit

And what it all boils down to
Is that no one’s really got it figured out just yet

I’ve got one hand in my pocket
And the other one is hailing a taxi cab

 

 

– alanis, 1995