But, facing forward, here where the whispers became accumulation, excess
drove him to deafness. He was deaf and blind, in weakness. Gravity pressed his skull against the ground. Repression dumped him in a pool of hardening grease. He broke the surface with a plunge, making the crust flake, but drank sickness, a pooling brown color, like shit. The muck flung handfuls and he sank.
Torrid breath, scentless, stained the cement. Wilting and crying. Dissipating smoke curled off limbs, like a cigarette with no filter, wasting away, in pollution. Contraceptive energies ricocheted within, stretching the torso. It gave birth to a death-baby, amniocentesis to end all sleeping, it nurtured itself poorly, in all ways absolutely at odds with the reaclass="underline" built up of silent voices. Hardness platformed decay. Putrefaction prefigures death.
::::::::::::::::::::
"You probably shouldn't have come," Ashley said.
"But you promised," I said, "that you would be there." "I can lie," Ashley said. "I'm a liar."
"If that's what you say." I held her hand. "Why didn't you come?" "I didn't feel like it."
"You didn't want to see me?"
"Yes."
"Why."(not a question)
"Because you'll just be thinking about her."
"Not true."
"You're right, it's not."
"Then what?"
"Didn't feel like it."
"Whatever," I said. "If you want, you can lie to me." "It's fine," she said. "I already have."
I stood with her for awhile. The trees blocked out sound. Thirty feet away, Trey and Markus saw through new sets of eyes. I didn't have to go far.
"If you want," I said, "you can leave."
"I'll stay," she said. "I want to see the fireworks."
As I held her, she felt absolutely, remarkably unreal. Above, the sky split, letting pour its great reserve. Brightness spiraling. Under the roar, I heard Trey scream, as though he'd been launched into space, atop a nuclear missile. Pirouettes of unbalance showered on high, hanging in sus-pension. I smiled, and thought of writing a poem. I wasn't on a hill, and they weren't the right colors, but it was almost as though the stars were falling for me.
The
b r i d g e was still here. There was still
very little flowing.
“I was wrong,” I said, raising a hand. “About you.”
“That's because…” the man with the afro might never have left, “it must be because
you're a horrible person.”
“Maybe.” “You throw rocks at small animals,” he said, “and
you have a big piece of
garlic in
your soul.”
“You're one to talk,” I said. “You can't even speak straight.” (in straight lines)
He straightened.
“W
h
a
t
does that matter?”
“I never said it did.” I laughed and said:
“I don't apologize very often.” “You
aren't
doing a very good job
right now.”
“Why not?”
“You made me d
a n
c
e
” he said. “You can NEVER
apologize
for that.”
I shrugged. “Well at least I tried,” I said. “And what can I say?
I thought you looked like a dancer.”
He wretched, picking
his nose.
“At least I think I understand you now,” I said.
“You're like an artist, just not a very good one.”
::::::::::::::::::::
I led, with James leading, (along) a concrete stream, glass fish swimming, electric animals eating (shitting repeating)(blood shit tufts of fur) in the groves at either side, looking at us as we led, out innocent, opalescent eyes. He skipped, fluting, and I played a game of catch with myself. The idea had something phallic about it, as long as it was still tied to language. Up above: flat clouds in a soft fading sky, around a nub of color in the center, dull pink folded to a pastel painted clitoris. Evening paved the city in dusk. Fire fell when the sun shut its eye.
"The city's sick," I said.
James, beside, walked with his head down.
"Yeah," he said, "I know."
"Seriously," I said, "we're so sick. Every day, it's all I can do to keep from
sacrificing babies. I hate these people so much they're going to make my eyes fall out. We're so sick.
Seriously."
"It's always been this way," James said.
"Of all people,
I would
probably know."
::::::::::::::::::::
Markus sat with me by the edge of the sea. We sat out. We were. We would drink the waves; we would split the horizon. That's not right. Really. For being rock, centuries broken into a million dirty fragments, baked, split open, mauled, cut into by rain and weather, beating incessant for a million years, in packs, in stretching planes, the sand was surprisingly gentle. I remembered.
"The sea's hungry," I said. "It wants to swallow us whole."
"No," Markus said, "it hungers for the shore."
"Same thing."
"It doesn't care about us."
"Whatever," I said. "The ocean doesn't do so well with barriers. It's breaking
through the water. These things
go both
<--
directions
---->
"
::::::::::::::::::::
"Jesus," he said. "Your neighbor. She's dead."
"It's fine," I said. "It's what she wanted."
Laying
there
bent over, white with maggots in her skin, uglier than in life almost; flabbing
slab and breasts together; her neck bent to an impossible angle by death, chin
coated in what might be drooclass="underline" she had the breath of a corpse, still coming, as stagnancy swept through her, slowly, with the time she gave it; splayed hands on the couch; she had a thread of yarn in one hand, claws in either direction extended, and by the fire a trail of fire burned slowly up the length to what might have been a (blazing) sweater, mass produced, one and one, and imbued by her with a whole lifetime's worth of resentment, not to mention deceptively poor insulation. In time,
the flame would get to her. She was a burner of witches.
"Lets get out of here," I said. "I have no idea why we came."
::::::::::::::::::::
"I don't know if you'll believe me,"
I said
"but there
are 2
(two)
of me
…and
she wasn't there