I want to
Tell you
Something (heartbreaking), but
I’m not sure
It is in me.
Sometimes I go
To bars, alone
Fingering secrets
Of skin and bone
Thinking I’ll find
A just-right person to tell them
to.
I watch the door go
in and out and
Out and out and in—
A man sits across
The bar from me.
He looks up.
I look up.
His expectation rankles.
His eyes agitate for invitation
Stating I want lunch when
I do not want lunch.
He wants lunch.
What’re ya having?
He orders twelve
Chicken wings,
Suicide.
Eats them alone,
Greasy mouth pick-
ing skin from bone.
His eyes slide
From me to
Flat screen tv
to me
I circle the
Sweaty ring
My pint left
Where the rec
Eipt sticks to
Bar top, and
I fold four crisp
dollar bills
Underneath the pint—
walk out.
The air is cool. My jacket open.
The last time we were in bed together,
It felt like someone else was in the room, though
no one else was in the room.
I circled my fingers up and around our cunt.
At first, it was dry
And then,
Slowly,
With no electricity or even showmanship,
With no tipped-velvet moment of
Opera curtains drawing back.
With no plugging-in or
Mounting—
It got slippery and wet.
Involuntary bodily response,
Am I a fucking puppet?
I can’t get over a feeling, like
I’m fucking in ruins or something.
My fingers connect, but
The line is dead.
·
Last, as in a marker of time/last, as in a final moment/last, as in a resting place/last as in who lost the race/last, as in last in line/last, as in left-overs or chosen out of lack of choice.
I want to stop having sex with you.
I want to stop having breakfast with you, sharing a bed with you, and listening to you talk about your day.
I am going to stop naming you ANGEL, HONEY, BABY, SWEET, LOVE,
but I might give those names to someone else very soon.
I do not know if I wished I still loved you.
·
I went back to work yesterday. Being touched by strange men for money. It is not your touch, but does it matter?
·
When you lose a limb, and you still feel its aches and pains, this is called phantom limb syndrome. When you lose a limb, the nerves of your brain wired to respond to that limb reconfigure themselves to respond to different touches on different limbs. This is why when I touch your cheek you may feel as if I am stroking the bottom of your feet.
You are not supposed to be ticklish here.
Rewiring takes its time.
·
I dream I am sore in my upper chest. I dream I am in bed as if I have just woken up. My fingers gently probe the top of my breast plate. I think, Oh, I am bruised here. When did I get this bruise?
It is one of those light bruises that feels good when my fingers press on it. Where did I get this bruise from? When did I get this bruise? I wake up. There is no mark. My throat is tight.
·
recordor orig. latin /reˈkor.dor/
re- (“back, again”) + cor (“heart; mind”).
meaning a segment of time that passes back through the heart
·
On the plane ride home, I imagine all the people who have moved in and out of me gathered together in a white room. They are not talking to each other and they move very slowly or not at all. The room looks like the representation of heaven in some movies: infinite and two-dimensional. I roll my thumb in a pad of dark red ink and weave through them, marking each person I love or have loved, loved or will love, with a red scroll of thumbprint in the middle of their forehead.
When I mark them, will I say: “It is you who I love,” or “Is it you who I love?” And what if, when I say this, each one replies with “No” or “I don’t love you” or “It is not me who you love.”
What then?
I have already marked them.
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