Memory

Ya know, I went back to our old place yesterday.
Walking softly, barefooted, I traced my city-bleached hand along the soft, weathered&worn amber hatch. Smelled the whooshh of scents still stained into the wood, the fabric ..and the now-cobwebbed corners.
It still smelled of everything before us. 
It was still mine, ..once - as the waves swooshed outside. 
It all looked just the same.

Lying down on my old side of the bed we shared - atop the very same old sheets (I realized) that I'd quickly thrown atop it the day we packed up - it was as if, all of it, had been another story written once for fun - for passion - for satiating, maybe a never-ending desire. (Written with scratched out places and underlined love scenes) as I would have laid here like this spilling over with want. 

There went - there it goes...another one of those weird, excruciating moments I've come to live beside - when your old self slams against the "grown-up" with such force that the rigging SNAPs and the boom swingsss, and POPS. 
But you laugh. 
And I'm remembering again how to duck in time.
Remembering again my old reflexes.
Old joys - that go like, like "happy thoughts" when I'm...sailing, tugging the line just right, leaning my whole upper half off the side; peering into the sunset. Studying the waves for what's to come. 
Backwards cap and old freckles. Back again.

That's where I love from.
Even if I've been forgetting lately just where I belong. Where should it go?

See, the waves can only tell you certain things (when you demand too much) - They can only rock you, 
and only throw you, 
-only sadden you, 
and only ease you into temporary peace... 
it seems.
Cause they scatter 
into puddles 
on the CONCRETE.
Ohh, how they do s.c.a.t.t.e.r. At the shattering point when rain hits the same screened windows and falls again, and again...

How we fall again...and again...
But what's the last one? - the last bead of Bay water - that runs down and immerses the path of it's little trail.
I'd like to know a new story like that.
Maybe I just need a new city again.





Daily headphones: Adele's "Rolling in the Deep", Matchbox20's "Real World" and Bob Seger's "Turn the Page"

Geometry

All I make is all I have. 

And I'm still doing penance for all my sins. 

It's funny, this penitentiary.

It's such an easy act to play - much too believable for them to believe. 

They'd laugh and never believe any of it. 

And I never tell the story right anyhow. 

Geometry was always an inconceivable delight.

All the shapes, form the shapes. 

Add up the shapes. 

Mathematically, systematically, they should fit together right. 

But it was so easy to share the answers. 

So easy to make the math not add up right. 

Ain't that just how it goes. 

(Did I get there too predictably?)

It'd be predictable if all my skin shown all the stories.

If all my arms and back and neck had tattoo's. 

Surprises myself sometimes to find it all looks so clean. 

We all look so clean. 

Clean up so nice. Joke so good. 

Joke and tease me until I,..

Until the next idea or adventure greets me. 

And I can show the woman I once was. 

I can show what the night feels like. 

The night sky that is, just above Neverland. 

Never, never, land. 

Never get too scared and come down. 

Life, it's just changing words.

Because they feed our Art*

Kick yourself for being here again. 

Making that long walk through the city to a place that's getting too familiar -  you know exactly what drawer to pull. 

So you tug up your starched collar - checking that the cologne is still lingering  - and you mutter against the cold that "this is the last time" with her.

Then that smile that men get sweeps across half your mouth at the slightest memory - with the people and the couples passing....and the city...

__And what was that? - that - it just made the towering buildings glitter so seductively. The wet pavement swelled down to rest your feet and everything felt alright. 

How does a woman do that? The memory of the woman you approach. 

Why do these women always do that to you? - every time, every goddam time.

They're enchanting - guilty pleasures, muses, girlfriends alike -  they're beautiful things to know, to take, sighhhh, - to take in so many beautiful ways.

And they never know we planned it just that way. 

"Why do we keep doing it?" she whispered in bed to her...

"Because they feed our art" 

....and the sensation of gasping in the sweat on his neck whips across the mind in splatters of paint for an instant.

Oh, there's canvases of wreckage on all the walls - taken each time from a man that she seemed so beautiful to once.

Each time she cared for them,
each time she knawed
and clawed
and rose - she was stealing all those memories. 

She takes, 

He takes. 

And we each smile at how good we fooled 'em that time. 

While quietly, something aches that it's just not right. 

It's really just not right. 

"I've heard artists are never satisfied.." silence. Caught me. 

I'll always want a masterpiece 

now centuries past attainable.

Those old tendencies of deception linger....and those games you might try to play - well, I have them burned between my legs already. 

Forgive me.

Forgive me, 

see - my religion may be questionable. 

Cause I believe in my fleeting youth - and I believe steadfast in the Night. I touch her excitedly and off we go through the waves and the art and the great, great characters I've gotten to know...

What does yours do for you? 

And somewhere days past he finally knocks on the door - just two taps - that it takes to feel the pulse already ah-ah-ahhh off the rails. 

Deadbolt clicks before there's time. 

He doesn't hear any of his reasons anymore. 

He throws off his coat and grabs hold and - we're hurriedly, frantically, - laughing and gasping - off again...

There goes another story I shouldn't have stolen. 

Daily headphones: Rihanna's S&M