lovely scented ghost

when i say i don’t want to exist, i am trying to ask for the high sharp note of a lemon, split across my tongue.

we limit speech to apologies and collisions, restrict touch to skin. i no longer trust scales, prayers, or repetitive numbers. we watch the hospital on tv, eleven seconds between explosion and sound. pillows of grit bubble into blue. our legs still through too many movies, neither learn nor forget the distance between skin and chrysalis. i open myself but remain human and paper. the music does not change and colour does not fade. i clean the bathroom floor. inside my nose the smell of warm water. 

if you asked i would have explained in physical terms. the blue veins of the chicken you ate, as though mood did not touch other body parts. the unpoetic safety of colon, carpal, sesamoid. i hold the taste of jasmine in my mouth, your tongue an absence. latticework of space.

we pressed ourselves into
a circle of sound.
our laughs whitened
train station cold, locked
out the strangers
who held their bodies
like bruises,
whose sad hands
would not stop talking

while back home,
people we knew
crawled from the bed
to the floor, choked
on air and pushed
sound into words
we pretended
meant nothing.

there are ways to be afraid
which cannot be told
and cannot be forgotten.
there is pain we do not
let ourselves
understand
because we could never
be quiet

again. 

no one told you
about the days
when every disaster
blinks invitation
and your head spills open
to red static.
when you can’t trust
anything fast or loud or far,
and you lie on your back,
afraid
of your own hands.

or the days
your nerves string colours
into chords
and the taste of air
blooms blue
across your tongue.
the landscape streams fireflies
and opens and opens and opens.

no one told you
these are often
the same days. 

Night pours purple ink.

Houses jut frozen grass
as a spot of orange
dribbles over.

Streetlight halo.

Van gogh stars
or tv glow.

Radio wave tremble.
I move through
the landscape
with
out
touch.

If I squint at paper branches,
will I see pixels?
My hand the same bark.

Carbonation vibrates my legs.
I force words from under my tongue.


A sky of polished stones turns slowly.

Speech breathing loud in my head, I jumped into the river. 

As a writer, I shook my product in my thoughts until my breathing was arrested. As though I did not carry thoughts of cramps at the end of my fingers. My position was not elegant. I cracked or broke the entire page. 

I darkened September. I’m so cold here, exposed. I do not know what time it is. I’m too much noise, sound, and tired. When someone touched me, I felt my words as separated bits. To remove as much as possible, I stayed in bed. Even if it was claustrophobic, it was better than being seen. I clicked my lungs, birds caught my spine. My ribs sold me to the shape of the wall. My editor left me in the corner to keep better press. 

This is not always the case, I know. Spring arrived before the yell of bedtime and I listened for half an hour to the branches dripping roof on the ice. Epileptic pleasures shot through me. I reduced caffeine and alcohol consumption. I minimized stress and got regular exercise. I ate crunchy apples and drank lots of water to help liver function and reduce side-effects. I affected my mood directly and indirectly. I applied for government assistance. But the paper label of my skin was a remainder. 

I tell as much as possible with poetry and prose, but you do not know my memories.  The bottle is a sealed secret room, and the people I write cannot be understood. The physical universe is vague. There are few songs. I have to work so that I’m alive. I’m not working. I cannot understand how. 

I’m better, in general. I left the bruises on my neck in a waiting room six years ago. I fell to the floor in the living room, but I promised to love you. I do not forget to take off my clothes. Scissors hidden when you’re sitting there and you want to hurt me. I cannot be in a position in my skin. My nails are short previews. I do not remember why, but it’s probably not good to a certain degree. 

I was concerned to wake in middle age, sleepwalking in the lives of others. 

and my great-grandmother
never saw
our nerves grow
from white trees
to a hard parade
digital ghosts
in baritone

but i know
she understood

detatched
hips,
bones
delicate
as static.

her veins hardened
until the doctors
couldn’t touch her
and she fell
through her body
like a memory.

i am sorry
i did not visit
or understand

your voice over
the phone,
i am sorry

i do not remember
ever touching
the blue watercolour

of your skin.

i pray sometimes
not to anyone
           anything
please be okay please
  keep the quiet
out of my ears 

queenofthelilacs:

    

                    y                   s
                     ou                  to
                      ,wi                   rm,
m                     th a                 stir  
 e,        a           ll  of                rin         g
  ba      re            your               up        my 
    tr   ee              piec               vein     s in     
       tip                es tu              spar   row
         ing             cked in          nests &
            in the      to the           ratt
                  wind.fragile          ling
                       crook of       dead
                      me, you    -leaf
                    with all ofbones.
                    yourchain
                   link  arms
                  wrapping
                around my
             waist saying,
         I won’t let you fall.                               
                                                        

 

(Source: frothic)

[made using words and fragments of words from the wikipedia article on borderline personality disorder.]

a conditioned thought:
love versus cognition.
prolong disturbance.

attempt a border;
impersonate terminology,
inhabit the injury.

split lines.
destabilize ships.
approximate motion.

dispace affections
with inappropriate
vulnerability. 

my oma’s voice
through the walls:
dreaming or praying.

i used to worry
there were ghosts
in the house.

now i am scared
there are no ghosts 

water pins

  yellow burn     s                low                            pond 

                                                                                                      acrylic.

Stars punch dichotic.

                                                                                                            limbs-jump     

                                                                                                    te le   vissss      

                                                                                                                                                     ion

toothroot                

                             aluminum

                                                          water

                                   skims off  

                                                   kn uc kl eb on es      

                                                                                           di                        s soci                    

                                                                            ate                                      

                                                                                                                                                  d  d  d  d d d d 

                      d       car hum                          

                                                                                                                                  roll. 

                                                                                                                                                      rep

eat.                                                                                   tap    er    of a   lin    e.     

      blunt                                              skeleton                                   blue 

     leaves,                                            flower.                                    pulse

                                                                                                            drowned 

                                                                                                               cars.

airplane whispers                        fingerprints tantrum                                blood is a physics

                                 yellow codes of warmth.               no green or black, no stars.  

graffiti drool of a generator.       unseen dogs swallows traffic

                                                                                                               scrunch of tires

                                                                                                                                  snow moults