PausedPalpitations

Cold and dark the place in which
I roll, feet out and heart flayed
Like a dissection specimen formaldehyde-fresh
And dripping. Wax mouths hiss warning
Yellow and sweat pearly beads of secret
Aches...secret breaks...
Secret-swift with treacherous eyes, the stiffness
Of this mattress if combatted by lonely arias
And the violent whine of violins. Who's the villain
When what was killed is never missed?

Hot orange the longing inside, like an electric
Burner left on for days and then deserted;
My hands are branded counterfeit by this
Heavy-lidded stove and her sloping brow
decisions, amalg-emissions, unambitious
Ambitions. Equalize the pressure -- it's all
Too much. She'll crack before the needle stops
Its frantic white-plastic paneled dance, before
The spiraling plumes of personified terror stretch
Cat-like and uncurl inside the white whale's belly.

If I'm turned and shook so that the colors show,
Would they bleed back into the see-through spine
And all her tell-tale children? The progeny of poorest
Thought-I-felts and eager angry salivations dictate
With a solemn whisper: you may get through should
The old accusations of soul versus soul evolve
Narration-like into lovely claims of mismelancholia
And numbing cold.

My vacation was less than exciting. Although I relished having Manda around again, and although we both cherished the time we had together before she transferred to another base in Wichita Falls...it was all over too quickly. Distant now are the memory-makers and the blue-black velvet skies of Texan nights. Faded now are the piles of clouds like sooty snow that I witnessed while flying for the very first time. Withered now are the hopes of laughing beneath the blankets while Frodo and Samwise traipse across a hotel-issued television screen.

Oh, but in the end it all falls down.

"Ashes to ashes," isn't it?

Holding myself captive for a week without outside intervention proved interesting. The capacity I exhibited for melancholy thoughts was surprising; even more shocking was the fact that I managed to find pretty the intertwining concrete streets, the hulking overpasses, and the desolate buildings of abandoned strips that line San Antonio like a second skin. Sea World and touching dolphins paled in comparison to writing beneath an enormous moon beside a still and lonely hotel pool. I was on my own for much of the time. I was in love with myself for none of the time. I'm tanner now (oh, so brown), blonder now (just a little -- chlorine and too much sun tend to wreak havoc on helpless hair follicles), and a little hardened when it comes to support for our country's military.

Have I mentioned that I loathe our president? Have I posted pictures of my dorm door turned anti-government bulletin board? Have I said, choking down half-hot tears, that the Air Force instills ridiculous propriety and corrupting, unnatural, pointless, badbadbad mannerisms in its trainees?

Ashes to ashes.

Off on a tangent that doesn't wring from me so much sorrow: I thought of you so many, many times while languishing in the southern sun. I dreamt about tornadoes, guilt, black skies, and you. I wondered if you'd like the way the far-away stars reflected in my eyes when I stood outside the reception hall and blinked back angry sentiments like shadows. I missed you more than is self-respectably allowed. Silly grin: I was wondering if you'd ever make use of those digits...but in the end I realized it was I who needed conversation, and not you. And in the end. And in the endendend I stood up, breathed in, and put away the little tools that rend and cleave.

"Samael and Lilith, sitting in a tree..."

Oh, I'm too ridiculous for my own good sometimes.

In addition: It's now past midnight. I can't sleep. I'm terrifying myself with little deaths-of-thoughts and falling-apart things that hurthurtHURTME right now. More than anything. Water like black paint runs down cavernous hall-walls and slithers along marble floors towards the pinpoint light of do-you-realize? "Do you realize you have the most beautiful face? Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die? And instead of saying all of your good-byes, let them know you realize that life goes fast, it's hard to make the good things last..." It's an illusion. Why aren't you here to listen to my ridiculous fears? Why do I have these ridiculous fears? Never mind. I don't want those particular scars seen by anybody but THERE, we have a contradiction. Three seconds later and I wish I could talk to you. I do. I wishwishwishwishwish more than anything that I could be held and listened to...and...there's an end to this. The weakness reigns tonight, but tomorrow the mask of silly-ness is tied in place. To make you smile. "More I..."

Oh, I miss you. So much.