She was cold. I hated to see her shiver. It was the world, it was her, it was me. We are freezing. On park benches across America, we were freezing. I pulled up the collar of my coat and squeezed tighter against her. We were sitting watching the lake freeze; it was the middle of the night. We were in love.

We didn’t speak. We were scared of the sounds our voices made when we were trying to talk. The air was so cold, ice on the sides of my shoes, clothes were stiff, bones were heavy, the world was still, and the wind was dead. It was one of those pure freezes. No wind-chill, just cold. The sun was probably dead, the oceans probably frozen. The air had all but disappeared, nothing dared move. But I can still recall the feeling of the hot tears in the corners of my eyes as they slowly froze and grew larger. Stretched across my skin, scraping the flesh tight.

We were in love. We wouldn’t move. It was too cold to hold hands. Too much ice in the air to talk. Silent and dangerous, like the ice crawling over the lake. We we’re scared. It’s not terror if you’re not awake, and I was dead. It’s convincing thoughts like these that give me trouble. Sure I was a corpse, sure I was forgotten, sure I had been killed, sure I was stabbed and beaten and tied and bound and tossed away. I could remember a hundred different crime scenes, a thousand different culprits.

But as it turned out, I was very much alive and only so far gone. I knew that we should move, that we should get up. That our blood should flow, that our hearts should beat drums and we should beat tracks, that we should grow roses in our cheeks and laugh and hold the heat in our breath, blow hot kisses. I knew what we should of done. how we should have felt. But we just sat there, and it got colder and the world would shatter.

But everything was fine; we kept sitting there not speaking. Our shoulders touched, our hip bones touched, our knees touched, our feet touched, our hands were in our pockets and our hearts were locked up. We were in love. I tell you we were in love. My face was tight and bitter, the flesh was unwilling to suffer for the mind, suffer for the heart. The flesh knew the answer. The best in the beast of me knew what was wrong here. But the worst of the rest of me just wouldn’t move.

My knuckles were thick and brittle. I could see them turn to dust and powder up under the skin. There wasn’t even snow on the ground. It was so cold. A photograph wouldn’t have shown the temperature. They rarely show anything. The only sign was the grass. It cracked and broke at strange angles rigid and sharp. The water had frozen and burst through it. If it ever thawed it would lay flat and flimsy, it would not stand up straight again.

She was strong and silent like old mountains. Like great trees. I could never guess what she was thinking. For all I knew she was trying to escape. This suffering, this pain. I was too much of not enough. She could have been running the same words through her mind over and over, building it until she exploded. Hate. She must hate me. I am the damned. And she doesn’t care. She doesn’t have to believe in anyone but herself. She’s so strong that the child I am is ashamed.

You could feel your lungs. They wanted to surrender. Rather just quit than keep breathing this stuff in. It hurt. It was not pain, it was wounding. You felt the lacerations. You felt the wounds of it, not the warning of pain. Whatever danger your body had tried to warn you of was already tearing up and down your chest. Ribcage would wheeze, like the bones couldn’t take it. You could feel your heart slow down, like it was being squeezed. I could see the ice-white tendrils of frost crawl around it crossing paths and pulling at the red flesh.

I couldn’t hear her breathing. She was alive, I just couldn’t hear her breathing. We gave off no signs that we were alive. I think we were blinking. I can’t recall. I prayed for a sign. I knew that if I just saw the way, if I just saw the path I would take it. I’d be fine. We both would. Just a sign. Signal me. Tell me what to do. I’ll do it. I’ve surrendered it all to hope and faith in the unknown. I am a slave, command me.

The ice out over the lake shattered, a great torrent of water spilled out over the surface. It cracked and shifted and broke. The noise was beautiful. The death of inanimate objects, it’s pleasing to us. We like death; it’s a secret we try our whole lives to keep from ourselves. But we really do like it. Mystery, curiosity. We know the answer and we play the riddle anyways. Cold death, slow and painful, they used to call it a shame, we call out everyday. What is life, but our long and slow, painful and precious dance of death.

Please lord, just push my body. Please. I have seen the sign and now all I need is to be forced. I have not the strength to do it myself. Just pick me up and carry us away. Set us in our beds, kiss our lips and tell us to hush. It will be all right tomorrow lord, just tell us and make it so. Just grab my legs and send them forward. Pull my hands out of my pocket and put them to her face. Move my mouth, tell her that the rest be damned that love still stands. Kiss her for me lord. Keep her happy. Love her lord. If you could just love her for me I could make it. Push the hair out of her face and put the corners of our eyes together, let us cry and our tears find the same path down our touching cheeks. Let us quiet up at the same moment and embrace against our sobs. Let us find the strength of one another and let it fill us with tomorrow. Lord just give me the future. I have already surrendered. I am a slave to the day, I am bound this night. Willingly I have surrendered my will. I’ve lost myself lord, find me. Please lord, just do this for me.

She turned, her eyes were diamonds, she turned my head towards hers, her lips were new and brilliant, her hands were warm and white, they were real, we were alive. She moved in close to me and said, we will die here, ignorant and frozen, the rest be damned, Our love must stand. She kissed me, and we moved. My hands were free, I found her heart, we were alive and breathing. Our breaths were warm and shared. We weren’t blinking, I can recall the reflection of her eyes in mine in hers, we were free. We were in love. I don’t need to tell you, we were in love.

The faithful are hopeless slaves, atheists are the hand of god. 

8/22/07

It’s so dangerous lying awake at night. All sorts of nasty sick little thoughts find their way; make their way in from the darkness. And it’s always too hot or too cold in this city, nothings ever “just right”. But you only ever feel just ‘all right’ when some slob on the street asks you. It’s funny the way you can toss everyone else into the mix and make perfect into pity.

And the windows open and you don’t feel safe; And the windows shut and you feel trapped. Can’t breathe, and there’s never any in-between. Not with all these animals around, not with all these monsters sleeping soundly. It’s either predator or prey, villain or victim, it’s either happy or awake, either dumb or morose. You can’t find a piece of middle ground; you can’t help yourself with all these goddamn color blind killers around. Black or White, or both. The fucking light beams are hypocrites.

The beds not long enough and my feet hang off, and the nights too long and I’m only hanging on. And I think about the lonely naked ghosts and I’m tied up in their bed sheets, and I forget about the lonely naked racists and I’m tied up in their sweaty blindness.

Maybe it’s easier when everyone else is asleep. When they’re knocked out for half a second. You should see the teeth on these people; this city has got some giant fucking chompers. Cigarettes and angry knuckles have only made a dent. These people are meat eaters, these monsters are people eaters. But I’m told that scavengers have the sharpest jaws. Bone breaking marrow sucking parasites, can smell fresh blood from miles off. They’re not killers but they certainly don’t mind finding the corpses.

But these men and women do all their killing with a smile and kind word. Cardboard cut outs with machine guns. Gunpowder and the smell of leftovers. Takes ‘em twenty years, but they’ll slit your throat. Twenty years, but they got the time. They make time. And they make you make time. Make you wait. They watch you wait. And that’s the worst of it.

And I sink into the mattress and the mattress sinks into the floor and the buildings sinking into the earth and I’ve got this sinking feeling that life is just a sinking feeling.

But she’s there, asleep right next to me.
She a little warm weather, she’s a bit of brown leather. She can stir up my birdcage, send the shit flying. And its worse when the birdcage hits the fan, poor sticky feathers. Good thing bloods romantic, hot and thick, dying just makes it so hot, slow and painful, but dead has always been a downer.

But she’s asleep, and I can’t help but love her. She’s the only good thing for miles, and I’ve never been more than 60 blocks from home.

She’s got sharp little elbows that poke into her sides. Gorgeous little skull with a dream storm raging. I can’t help myself. She’s goldenrod. She’s life in a basket. She’s fresh oranges at sea. Sleeps in a old t-shirt, with that fuzzy kindness stitched right into the cotton. Sleeps on her stomach with her hands wrapped around her hips, she’s huddled, collapsed and christ it’s beautiful. She’s brilliant like long iron nails in hot wood. Her hair curls at the edges right around her shoulders. I bite my lip. She sleeps with her feet touching. Legs and knees locked.

And what’s left to me. She’s got it all taken care of. She licks beauty onto the back of envelopes and she turns men into dust, boots with no shadows. She’s a sinister sister with a picture frame lens and shuttering flicker. She’ll lead the dogs to war and tie leashes to olive branch peace trees and she’ll stand on two legs at the end of a long line of hunch backed knee scrapers.

Drinks the spring time vibrance and spits into the hot heat of summertime violence. She gardens like a greedy god breaking winters spell with ripe tomatoes. I can only follow her around and brush the dead leaves on to the sidewalks.

And my hands are blunt and bricked. Heavy and numb like their too big for my brain. My spines got a deep curve because I don’t stand up for myself. And it’s the dead of night.

Staring out the window I hear the newspapers get delivered. And I wonder how the waking world stays informed by the midnight writers. Bug eating bats that tell the birds how to sing. But they’re only blind, and it certainly sounds like they can carry a tune but it’s not one I’ve ever heard. But they work all night printing the words of tomorrow to tell the stories of yesterday. So we can wake up and read what we missed. I don’t know if there’s an honest chance in this world for a man with his name in the paper, he’s only going to get shit on. There’s always a smile on the front page and a dog training to sleep indoors.

And with nights like these I wonder if it’s the world that’s so big or just my own wide eyes. And she’s asleep next to me, and I’ve gotten to feeling terribly alone again. So I wrap back up around her. And with my eyes closed its easier to forget that there’s more to this world than just what’s within arms reach.

8/20/2007