1. |
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Can you point me to the nearest place where there’s a body of water? I always mess up “lie” and “lay.” I need to lay down someplace where there’s grass or else push my fingers deep into sand and make a plan to stay here. There’s a shadow of an elm tree that won’t touch me if I move. When you told me to hang around, then on your way home totaled your car, I sat up thinking, not sure if I was meant to make a promise. And when we were eight and ten years old, holding hands and imagining the people we’d be, all the things in the future we’d see. We couldn’t wait for everything. But when I look back now, there’s just white smoke and kitchen knives, and our mom telling us to go to hell, a lit cigarette ashing down her chin and trembling. Dark glasses and sleeves and knowing where all the exits are at all times, I suppose we each learned a little more from her than we care to repeat. At fifteen, in high school, wearing clothes that smelled of smoke, writing shitty poetry, thinking, “No one knows what it’s like to be me.” Missing school and calling home, just disconnect the telephone. Never knowing what time of day it is ‘cause it’s so dark inside. And when I look back now, there’s just — can you point me to the nearest place where I can lie down this weight and stretch my shoulders. Keep it safe. I need to make a plan to stay here. There’s a humming bird above me that I think might mean something. Dark rooms and time alone, and a door whose lock had been removed, never feeling safe, and afraid of coming home. I only know if I stay and wait here, years go by. It might seem slow, but there’s never time to make any meaningful change. I’m too tired to start today. Kneeling down and folding hands, not sure if we’re doing this right. We can wear our parents’ nice clothes and pretend that we’re grown. And after all of this time, I’m still here, standing here alone, with a door I won’t unlock. No one has helped me feel more safe, I’m still afraid of coming home.
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2. |
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I take it back. You see, I’m not myself and the promises I made, well they were all — I made them all in vain. When I said to never fall in love, I meant to warn myself that it’s important still to keep a steady stream of bullshit in my way, because I’m happiest when I’m in pain. But still I’ll drink enough to get drunk and sing my songs, sing so you can clearly hear that I hurt. Despite what may come, I start… But still I second guess everything I’ve ever done, making this all widely known that I know nothing at all but to run and hide. I think I’m falling, oh, I think I’m falling apart. I think I’m blaming myself. It’s just so hard to keep on going. It’s not what imagined. It’s still so hard. Being so far away. It hurts my back, you know, to shoulder the weight of this crippling self-hate and try to fight this insecurity. When she says there was someone else, I hope she thinks of me and wishes she had not made the mistake of sending me away, but I’m happiest when I’m in pain. But I’ve got my whole life still behind me.
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3. |
Smoke and Candles
03:11
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Hours you’ll never get back reminiscing on how much you think you’re owed in life. The copper smell of white smoke and candles carefully put away. We’ll need them. They shut off the power. We’ll argue in the dark until the bills are paid. Love like treading water in the ocean, looking for the shore. When you’re only a kid and can’t stand to fight anymore. It wasn’t fair to me that you used so much that we would lose years in bathrooms, spun out, up for days, then sleeping like the dead, thinking “if only.” And separate all the still useable, not too bad paper plates. They shut off the water. We’re wearing dirty clothes until next week Monday. Feast, famine, and repeat. Pick out whatever toys or games you want, then there’s no food at home to eat. In the car, sitting in the dark, and counting your breaths, years you’ll never get back. Second guessing your decision to wake up. I never dream, but sometimes I wake up to candles burning and carefully put them away.
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4. |
Whitman
03:35
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It takes everything I got. It takes every pill I can fit in your mouth to shut you up—to show you I’m more than a wave or a candle. I’m not crashing down. I’m not burning out. I’ve grown to hate the taste of blood and so I will not bite my tongue. Wash away the chalk outlines you’ve already drawn around your life. You’ve tried digging this grave, but it’s in concrete and with a rusted spade. And this time maybe I’m not just screaming at walls and maybe it’s not just you or the echoes calling back. Calling me back to corners I’ve been fighting to get out of all my life. Bound with self-restraint, gagged with “it’s too late,” I had said goodbye to too much of my life, but now it’s clear to me that that ship, it was bound to sink. And this time maybe I’ll pull the stitching right out from my lips and I’ll sew myself tighter to the backbone I’m growing again. Growing again, I’m almost a man. I’m not the boy you’d like to make out of me. And I know it’s true, you can’t count on a single hand the number of times you’ve tried to die and you think you know enough about the world to make up your mind about shit like that, but you don’t. Do I contradict myself? Well, sometimes it’s hard to be as positive as Whitman. A heavy heart is like the second skin that I’m doing my best to fucking shed. Wishing you were dead is harder when your friends would kill you if you did. So now I’m breaking ties with you. I’m choosing life. Cut away the things that bind. Because now I’m free—at least enough to sleep straight on through ‘til morning.
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