Outloud

Damn. She’s gone. Just like that, she’s gone. The wind whips through my clothes and the mist that seems to hang in the air speckles my glasses, making everything seem to be underwater. Or is that just the tears I can feel welling in my eyes? 2

I stagger through the automatic doors, my head down; but whether it’s to keep myself warm or to hide the tears streaming down my face, I don’t know. I slump in the corner under the overhang, trying to block myself from the world. On the other side of this glass door is the hospital. If I turn around, I can see the polished white walls and the scuffed floors, the crappy green carpeting and the old airline-terminal style chairs. I suppose if I looked hard enough, I could see the emergency room where they took us when we came limping into the hospital – my right leg swollen to hell, her shirt stained red with blood, both of us pale as ghosts.3

Hell, maybe if I look REALLY HARD, I can see the freezer room where they put her body; that vibrant girl I loved, shoved into a drawer like so much cordwood. 4

Next to me, as if to provide a horrible ironic contrast, is a trash can overflowing with fast food wrappers and old bottles – a coat check of gluttony and greed for the ill. The vicious wind howls through the street, and I am treated to a downpour of McDonald’s bags and old French fries to go along with the freezing rain that seems to have materialized from nowhere.5

Tilting my head up, I can see the sky deepening into gray and dark as the rain intensifies, a miserable twilight that does nothing to sooth my grief. God, but that sounds trite. As if sensing my thoughts, the sky becomes darker still, and I raise my fist to give the Almighty that glorious one-fingered salute, screaming up at the sky. 6

I stay like that for a minute, but whatever it is that I’m waiting for – a booming voice asking me what the hell I’m doing, or a bolt of lightning that smites me where I stand – doesn’t happen, and I drop my arm down, letting it smack lazily against my thigh. I hear something crackle in my pocket, and I reach into my jeans with the hand that flipped off God to pull out a half-empty pack of cigarettes and a lighter – one of those crappy plastic ones you can pick up at Wal-Mart for a dollar. 7

I don’t smoke; the pack is (was, dammit, was!) hers, and I must have grabbed it and the lighter from her things when I limped out of that horrible waiting room. It’s funny. I don’t even remember doing it. Why would I take just these two things and leave all the rest of her stuff – her purse, that blood-stained clothing – behind in that building that stank of death and lemon-scented cleaning fluid?8

I pull out one of the cigarettes and let it rest in my palm; I have never made a habit of smoking –I don’t like the taste, I guess – but now seems like a hell of a good time to start. Flicking the lighter’s wheel, I produce a tiny orange flame and light the coffin nail behind my cupped hand. 9

I breathe in, holding the smoke in my mouth - I can’t stand to inhale, but that might soon change - and blowing it out in puffs. That familiar acrid smell fills my nose and at that moment, I love that smell, because it reminds me so powerfully of her. Memories of her flood into my mind, like someone watching TV commercials set to play at 4x speed – us flinging snowballs at each other in the middle of a blizzard, watching movies together on our beat up couch, her laughing at some joke I told, lying in bed with our arms wrapped around each other, us at the veterinary clinic when her dog had to be put down, her driving in this cursed wet weather, glancing over at me at just the wrong moment, never seeing the truck that cut in front of us and immediately slowed down, dooming her, me sitting in the waiting room while some idiot doctor tells me that they couldn’t stop the bleeding because the wound had gone too deep, and oh, by the way, the only woman you ever loved is dead.10

The cigarette singeing my lips snaps me back to the present. Looking around, I can see that the rain has stopped. In its place has come a shower of snow; white tears that I can feel soaking into my skin. I shove the cigarette into the ash tray on the garbage can, and I stand there for a moment, staring out at the curtain of white that has engulfed the world. A snatch of some song (her favorite song) drifts through my head, and it remains there, echoing painfully. 11

Head down, shoulders slumped, I trudge along the sidewalk, feeling the snow crunching under me. I disengage my brain, letting my feet take over as I smoke one of her cigarettes, and they carry me slowly through the city, wandering aimlessly. All around the city, traffic clogs the street, and the sidewalks are choked with people. None of them care. 12

None of them care. 13

After what must have been hours, I realize that I’m standing outside our apartment, and on the door is taped a package of cigarettes and a crappy lighter, with a piece of paper on top that says goodbye.14

Would you be the wind 15
To blow me home? 16
Would be a dream 17
On the wings of a poem? 18
And if we are walking through a crowd, 19
Well you know I'd be proud 20
If you'd call my name out loud*21

Sophie

It’s raining again. Or still. Whichever. It’s impossible to tell here. The sun comes up, and the black turns to soft grey. The sun goes down, and the soft grey fades to dark grey, then the deepest of blacks. The clouds roll across the sky, vast herds of thunderheads, each one a cavalry charge of epic proportions. The rain falls, and the street clears of people. It’s a very profound thing to watch, actually. I can stare out of my upstairs window, sitting on the cushions I have piled on my old traveling trunk, and watch as the rain first begins to patter against my window, slowly increasing in volume. The exodus of passerby on the streets is proportional to the rain, and no matter how fast the hard rains come – which they do, they always do – there is never anyone on the street. One time it hailed, and the people cleared the street at the same rate. And once it stops, a sudden halting of downpour, the streets fill again, almost in the blink of an eye. Doors swing open, windows are unlatched, and the sound of conversation and shoes on the sidewalk, that wonderful slapping sound that is unlike any other, can all be heard, even from my perch on that old traveling trunk. One of these days I’ll dig out this trunk, put the cushions aside, and starting walking again, feeling the somehow liberating weight of that trunk and the slapping sound of shoes on pavement. One of these days, but not today – it’s still raining, and the streets are emptying. There – the rain is a thunder on my roof and my window, and now the streets are clear – wait. Who is that? That girl there, with the sundress of vibrant green, my god she seems like summer come a new, a season in human form. She’s dancing, cavorting in the rain, as if it doesn’t bother her – perhaps it doesn’t, at that. She seems not to be soaked, and the light is strange around her – there is no grey, no black. It’s bright, as if she travels in her own sunbeam, a ray of light so full of warmth that it hurts my eyes, and I can feel her heat from here! Oh, what must her name be, this glorious creature of summer incarnate? What must the name be of a girl who doesn’t feel, perhaps is not even touched by the hard rain. Oh, I must know her name, and it seems my feet are faster than my brain – I’m out the door, my feet slapping on that black tar, and it feels hot, as at the end of a long day baking in the sun. The girl has turned to look at me now, and she’s smiling, she’s smiling, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I open my mouth to plead her to tell me her name, and I realize I already know it, and she’s nodding now, knowing that I know her, and she’s smiling still, Sophie’s smiling still, as I heft my traveling trunk over my shoulder, feeling that liberating weight, the freedom contained in the sound of my shoes slapping on the sidewalk as we walk down the road, and I don’t even realize it when the hard rains stop.

Paranoia in a Closet

My carpet moves when I'm not looking.
I'm scared to walk across it.

My toaster and my sink are conspiring;
I don't wash my hands anymore

My sheets are planning to strangle me.
I can hear their whispers when I feign sleep

There's a man who rustles through my trash.
I hope he doesn't find her body.

There's a camera in my toothbrush;
I just know they're checking my dental records.

My radio is sending me subliminal messages.
They want me to buy Pop-Tarts.


Music: Chicago, by Sufjan Stevens

The Fall of America

Welp, I decided I would try and start a blog, see if I could improve my ranting. I usually don't type excessivly about my life, so I figured it can't hurt to start.

This post is coming from the computer lab at Ledyard High School; I've just finished my Mechanical Drafting Final Exam. It was pathetically easy - I'm just sitting here surfing the web and reading Allen Ginsberg's The Fall of America. A good collection of poems, this is - pre-vietnam through the mid-seventies.

I will post more things later - the block's almost over and I need to sign off.