“Thin line between
heaven and here.” - Bubbles
Junkie strung out wanders between
shadows down cast flat windows looking below light shone through empty night
quiet night holy night and through the windows the kid sits eyes locked held in
cornea stretched out neon dream fever death internet repeat empty arms inflated
veins addict click click. Click hammer back addict brain pan de-mapped (quoting bible of addict
writing, DFW south side Boston). Light cast glowing not just junkie but kid too screen light not night
light entranced addict. Inside behind cornea there is passageway and its
ceiling is gone and full instead of stars but down it is infinite and so many
doors all locked so just forwards and down it at its end (white wallpaper grey
carpet stainless) is a door marked “Janitorial Supplies” and the man his
fingers half melted cleaning bleach hair gone grey though just 37 stress
exhaustion pushes the broom down hallway of high school, empty corridors
(night, night, goodnight) cleaning up shit fucking high schoolers wishes he was
still them, different choices, going to go home and be alone and eat his
microwave dinner (mac and cheese noodles stuck together, cheese congealed, Diet
Coke, AA ten years now gone clean but still) addict to his own pain now,
tearing up the walls, dry wall dry eyes screaming to God forgotten, and then
back each day to the high school grind, passes kid in all black sitting back to
the wall. And the kid sits on a tablet and it ran out of power in third period
but he needs something in front of him can’t look out be out can’t talk or look
or see or be seen and the blank screen before his eyes reflects his eyes,
sepulchre, wishes to be an addict because he wants to know how it feels to love
and to need and mostly to care for something be it even the addicted to object
and he stares hard at the screen stares
through
the screen black and
reflective reflexive wishes he could vanish into the screen and then he sees
bare legs walk above the screen and hears voice slightly smoked and it lilts
and he thinks if only if only but the legs have a body and the body has a mind
and a face and eyes that see and fall too into screens. And the mind is the
body though the body is all that’s seen the mind ignored and she wishes she
could see and she sees the boy in black and though the two think neither would
dare enter the other’s world, in the other’s world is all that could exist.
This not lust, lust too caring, too much emotion of the addict, but instead
another world out of finding walls in own bare and all black and reflective and
all blank screens and the mind attached to the body attached to the legs speaks
the pretty words thought expected of it and giggles slightly and laughs gaily
and the mind feels the body walking along next to it must surely lack a mind
for the vapid words issued forth from body’s lips, no true thought, to simply
exist, without reflection or pain, but the mind thinks at least though she is
empty and all within is reflective, at least she has the gift of something
within, even if it does lead all to simply Dostoevsky, adj. but even the body
next to the mind has itself a mind, though its internal struggle different,
thought process much the same.
And the tragedy of it all is if only
the mind was attached to the lips and the lips to the body and the truth to the
thought to the soul to the posture to the short skirt to the combat boots to
the black trenchcoat to the lip gloss to the football jersey to the torn jeans
to the patched up jacket stunk of old nicotine and urine and the bathrobe if
only if only all could see equal and level and each the mind separated not from
lips and if only if only.
Once upon a time in a kingdom far
away across a distant sea a young man and a young woman met each other's eyes
across a table and beers and warm summer night every night summer palm trees
tropics,
Demerol dreams summer nights cold
nights no summer here just slate grey skies and inside room colder heater out
junkie. Addict. Own pain self pain self hurt hospital release form notes left
scattered around house for police, family, friends, have to find them all, toys
in a cereal box, first day home from hospital house as empty as before made
attempt to leave, razor left on floor, fucking cops in this town grey walls
scratch out your eyes rip out your throat tear out your veins shoot up drop
drink TV on 24/7 click click (hammer back) socially approved out but not the
razor, this met with interment for life is precious life thrown away most of
all. Live!
Live from New York it’s! It’s!
It’s... it’s... its... it... I... not another re-run. Click (Click click click
click click click click click bam... click)
Live from Mogadishu its real life!
Death life flickering half-channel analog receiver life death grey white black
snippet snicket of moving picture ending picture sounds from outer space and
you hear a voice whisper through the static and through the haze “wake up” but
you’re already awake aren’t you?
Eyes crack open through that nasty
stuff your eyes have to crack open through sleep too long is it dark out
already or still or are you woken up at all because outside there are no stars
but there are no stars here, too bright, too many clouds, buildings too tall,
stars too far, hand scrambling spider for phone click on screen notifications
dopamine bump parents landlord power company parents parents grandma parents
landlord facebook! But no wait just another birthday.
Candles chocolate ice cream cake
lawn is green sky is blue sun is yellow balloons are red memories are but
spectres of might have beens.
(a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r
s t u v w x y z hamster in a cage, tiny desks, teacher’s desk #1 Teacher coffee
stains, mug tipped over, blood slick tile floor, memories but not your memories
but memories made fragile click click [bang bang bangbangbang twenty seven
dead] memories can’t be true and can’t be kind because images are, in our great
Gibson-granted future supplantabled between the static and replaced and the
ideal is lost and replaced with the truth)
addict
Homeless man, hair fallen out, hands
cut shattered broken, ink just below left thumb and cop recognizes it from
somewhere, lying cold piss frozen vomit shit stains no pulse, and people walk
by and stare dead ahead, and last night pulse fading, clicking out, homeless
man begs quietly for help 3am, on way home from club look down and grimace just
keep on walking and one notes to another how pathetic, weak, pathetic, broken,
and one girl pauses at cries for help and shivering quaking frail body but then
sees tear in jacket far too thin for night this cold needle marks patinaed
across deflated veins so she walks on, so he died to laughing voices and this
morning one of those who laughed now walks past body and remembers night-cry
for help and this one won’t sleep tonight even as girl caught in small of his
arm sleeps soundly next to him, chest rising, falling gently and he thinks of
telling her but he’s forgotten the word for death and he stays up alone staring
out the window looking for stars but there are no stars here.
At night lying in the gutter is a
baby’s rattle and in the gutter there is washed up trash and collected refuse
and half of a shattered bottle of Jack Daniels lies up the street from the
gutter and it’s shattered perfectly halfway no jagged edges, perfect line, and
it looks like it was intentional but it wasn’t and a dark trail reflects neon
on the asphalt leading from the bottle towards the gutter and someone looks at
the bottle and thinks of picking it up, so particular in its destruction, but
then sees the other half of the bottle and loses interest in both halves and
goes home and watches TV and eats dinner (home cooked, not great, but edible)
then goes to bed alone and he falls asleep with a smile on his lips remembering
something that he remembers wrong.
Red eyes eyes down down beat beat
off off key key coke. Red eyes.
Bass strong vig light night heavy
club empty chamber full.
Then empty and body cavity full and
eyes empty and head loaded (last trip, DMT not drug of choice but choice ain’t
got nothing to do with it)
Razor blade cyanide revolver barrel
(once heard chest better than head more certainty though too more pain but that
DMT trip never could score it might as well take it while he’s got it) heights,
depths, didn’t leave a note, unless they searched the dumpster (crumpled up
tossed off way out).
When her heart stopped they brought
her back but they didn’t bring her all the way back and now she’s here legs and
body and brain, and now the brain really is cut off and the lips instead of
“hey, like, what’s up” now go all “blip blip blip” and her mom cries and her
dad left and he drinks now and used to never drink at all and now all he does
is drink and the boy still sits in black in the hallway and he heard something
about it but he doesn’t connect it to the legs because honestly he’s forgotten
the legs and by the time the brain connected to the legs had its heart shut
down it had forgotten about the boy in black too though now with only time to
think and every thought to think and no words to speak the brain thinks of
everything and she thinks of the boy and wonders if he can see the stars from
wherever he is because her eyes still work and she can only see tile ceiling,
every day for the rest of always. k.
No comments:
Post a Comment