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