Ghastly weather

photo by jon roberts




brittle broken nails
brittle
broken
me

Have you got yourself an American boyfriend? her friend asks. Why don't she find herself an American boyfriend if she is so fond of them? Old crackpot. Peering at my wallet to see if I stuffed someone's picture there. Now she's ribbing. That tape belongs to my niece. She lives in New York City.

Why are they surrounding me? My God. They're all of a party. Their coldness. The amused interest. The hostility. Don't they have more of the same tapes in New York? Surely they could send a box to the fucks of Digos? I wanted to ask.

What I really want to tell them is, Why do you want to tear my back?

There's no saving a man from a lifetime of wickedness. Says the Commodore to the Pirate. Ghastly weather. The Prince and the Pirate taking turns to save poor Elizabeth, now she cannot run.

We're done now, she says. Margot will take care of everything. I am bored. Past despair past complaint. Love an old sting I alone bit. Please tell Sheilfa thanks for translating my poem I think the translation is better than the original. Tribute. Tribute. Kindness. To love another person is to see the face of God. Really huh. Not to love is to hang one's bones in the desert. She takes back. Does that all the time. Like the poems she keeps on revising and revising. She takes back love and redistributes love. Who does she think she is the Red Cross?

All beginnings end. From end to end it ends. Between beginnings and endings it ends. I am lost. In the beginning and in the end. And in-betweens. Hell. Who is not.

But this pain of knowing. An iron spiral turning and turning. So some people choose not to think. So as not to hurt. All wounds are mental. The wound deepens as you think more and more. Would you rather love? I asked. She chuckles. I'd rather be a millionaire.

What nut would reply to a crazy crier wailing Have you seen La Stranger?
A hard nut.

That's what she is.
A hard nut to crack.

A nice try that.

This place. The air. Laced with the smell of sepsis. Would she weep if she finds out? Like she did when she found out her love was to die?

Oh here. My heres. Even the silences are heavy with blame.
Scabs on my skin. Scratch and they bleed. Stretch and they bleed. Dear Douglas, all wounds speak in the present tense. No such thing as phantom pains.

Sometimes I choke. In my own self-invented pains. For not having seen her lately.

Hey. Have you seen La Stranger?
Hey you have you? Have you? Hey hey!


October 01, 2010, a journal entry