not yet not yet not yet not yet.

don't break my heart yet. he said. and she promised she wouldnt. but the truth was more that she would try not to, but probably would anyway. she saw her status plummet to the floor, saw it in the way his eyes dropped, the instant it happened. (read: didnt happen.) it hurt a little, and she wished she could cut out the tangles and leave just the part that was fit to wear out to dinner. but what if there wasnt enough left to cover her? worse, her time was running out, and she soon would have to stop praying for the words to come flowing out of her, in exchange for forcing them out. she would need to strike fear into the heart of each and every word, until they marched, palms open in defeat, methodically aligning themselves into some order that resembled enlightened thought. sleep...would have to wait.

perfect taco.

more secrets. inside, she begged him not to leave. at least not without saying goodbye. (but the truth was, he had been gone for weeks.) polite notes from would-be strangers in the early morning hours do little to ellicit emotional response, do little to deliver what should have been remorse with regards to lovers past and wounds scarcely healed. sometimes, she worried that she was empty inside. prayed that she had not become as desensitized as she felt, and that when the truth came speeding toward her at 213 miles per hour (as she hoped, rather suspected it might), she would still be able to feel it. all of this waiting forced her organs into slow motion, and it ate up most of her energy, convincing her heart rate to remain stable. there was a stain on the floor from the crusty mess, but mostly the blood was gone, the scars were faded. honesty would reveal that things were, in fact, quite filthy, but the dull visceral pain that usually accompanied such anxieties was on vacation. awaiting its arrival with hesitancy, for better or worse, she felt undeniably numb.

liars are easy to love.

congratulations, sir, on cracking the code. and this she whispered, "I've always known that you knew everything there was to know about everyone else but you." this is more than what self help books and cigarettes can fix. when she sat down to write, the words she found made her dizzy with secrets, and although the feeling didnt last, she was sure to keep her scars in sight.

the dreams were back, though the other had left them, he still remained. last night, she saved him from some visceral peril. she couldn't remember quite what. tried to leave it on the couch and just live for a while, but the new subreality clung to her frontal lobe like grease to her t-shirt.

if you want to know the truth, a secret: i want a legacy of beautiful moments, a castle full. I want to fill the moat with all the parts that hurt the most, and walk over them every day when I come home.

wake up

the dreams were gone for good (her cover was blown.) it hurt, but not enough, and there were parts of her that almost didn't care. things hadn't exactly been making sense to begin with, and so the next chapter did little to detract from whatever residual sense was left over. This had all felt like leftovers anyway. leftover love from some other who didn't quite deserve it, so that there was spillage. and what looked like blood was really love sewage, crusting on the tile. the tile sent shivers through her bare feet and she thought about the sunshine, and secretly prayed for it to come and burn the congealed loveblood right up off the floor, so she wouldn't have to see it (out of sight, out of mind). but for now, she would have to simply watch her step.

oh, wake up, wake up, wake up, youre only part of a dream...all the things in your heart, like the things in your head, theyre only, what they seem yeah, theyre only what they seem...

16 grams in every (lovin') spoonful.

the dreams had gone away again, it may have been the bananas, but there was no way to be sure. last night, she left her shirt on and he didnt mind, probably because his dreams tasted like nacho cheese and olives and cigarettes. yesterday was alright, she supposed, but even her cigarette made her gag (it wasn't the only thing). tomorrow, the music would come to her and it would be different this time. or at the very least, she hoped, things would be brighter, if only for a short while.

there was a puddle on the floor, it could have been sludge, but it looked like blood, and the thought of sopping it up made her stomach rethink that afternoon's tuna melt. so she left it there, and it curdled and crusted, turned to dust, which, when kicked up by penguin at play became airborne, and was sucked right up into her nervous system along with all the other daily toxins. the particles drifted happily, slipping along her blackened innards, leaving behind trails of grime, a legacy of impending doom. in spite of this molecular crusade (or perhaps because of it), for what its worth, she didn't feel a thing.

still kisses with saliva.

she had slept enough, eaten plenty. but something still didnt seem like enough. when it snowed today, she couldnt tell if it was flurries or pollen, so she squinted so it wouldnt get in her eyes. it was as if someone had accidently leaned up against some cosmic switch and flipped everything into fast forward so that even with all the good, she didn't get to enjoy it. he told her how happy he was, and that he was just trying to enjoy it as much as possible, before its all over. and she wondered about the last time she felt that things were more than "o.k." it was then that she realized that it hadnt been that way in a very long time. it wasnt that she wanted the sunshine back, but that she wanted it to come at all.

big big guns.

there are more dreams, only nightmares this time. at least she thought they were. but the truth is, the dreams and the real world had already begun to emulsify (she didn't do it on purpose). but when she saw the water beginning to boil and failed to remember setting the kettle, something inside her brain twiched. actually it was more like a ripple, a microscoping wave of doubt. and she wondered if perhaps, by some absurd chance, things had metamorphosed again without her knowing it. the lights flickered and goosebumps spread across her skin as she began to finally feel the rage building up in her stomach, like a blackened, crevassed lump of some foregin excrement. it wasn't remorse, or guilt, or desire, but unadulterated, insatiable wrath.
and she wished him great suffering.

kidsmoke.

"Our love is like cardboard," she said, "when we kiss, it doesn't taste." The truth is, it tasted like construction paper and markers. It was nothing epic, nothing tragic. She had started to remember her dreams again, but only when he was there next to her. And even then, when he was in the dreams, he was a presence she couldn't touch. In the real world, he loved to touch her. When he did, the shadow creatures that quickened her breath in the middle of the night crept into corners with the other dark things that plagued her. And when wires pumped the whispers directly into her cortex, this time, her body forgot to interpret it as pain.