She absently plays
with the stitches across
her lips.
Her eyes
have more sky
than sky.
Laughter like wind chimes
she holds out her hands
to collect the rain
hides all her light
where nobody is allowed
and I’ve walked past her a million times
a million times.
Sometimes
the only way to judge a port
is by the caliber
of sailors
that pass through.
There was this girl at school
Quiet Melody
was her name.
She used to hide in her hair.
Long and black it was
like a raven’s back
and she used it
as a curtain
so that nobody could see her.
When people addressed her
Melody would wave sheepishly
distantly
as though from another planet
and not say anything at all.
She had this favourite spot
on the floor
that she would stare at.
I often wondered
what she thought about
when she did.
You see,
she had this face
that could pierce your heart
it was just so beautiful.
Thinking back,
it was a real damn shame
that nobody
ever told her that.
Beneath the frozen ground
I can see summer.
I heard it was coming
in the loose gossip
buoyantly floating
around town.
I had a dream
that leaves were climbing
back upon the trees
like little green soldiers.
Soon,
all the birds
will come back
all at once
and the girls
laughing
will break out the
thin loud dresses
from the closet cobwebs.
I was in an apartment building
I still have bad dreams about
at the west end of Cambridge
on the tail-end of being high for two days
but I wasn’t even sure on what.
People liked me so they always gave me things
and when I’m drunk I’ll drop whatever
like a champ
because I’m the Pacman
of human garbage receptacles.
For some bizarre reason I sat in a chair
in the middle of the living room
facing the front door
with some broad in my lap.
Seen her around but
never really got her name
just knew that she was trouble and
wondered if she thought the same of me.
Her ass felt good there.
There was enough of it to really make an impression.
I squeezed her breast and kissed her neck.
I didn’t give a fuck who was watching.
The front door opened and some
bald scary motherfucker
drunk out of his mind barged in.
From word on the street
he was bad-ass crazy and addicted to aerosol cans
and as he smashed his half-full beer
against the wall
got on his knees
raised his scarred arms and screamed
something in Japanese
-I believed it.
In fact,
I believed that this man could
start a fight
in an empty house.
The host
a grizzly chain-smoking native
in an torn Iron Maiden shirt
and Hello-Kitty sunglasses
calmly strolled over and started
feeding him uppercuts
like they were half-price at Walmart.
This was all happening right in front of me
so I was about to get up when the girl
wiggled around in excitement.
Sick bitch. I got hard.
I stayed.
Wham!
They were on the floor to the left of us
Wham! Wham!
Now to the right.
How they avoided hitting my chair
and us hitting the floor
to involuntarily join them in this orgy of violence
was an absolute miracle of God
(there is no God here).
Despite all the action
I started to close my eyes
wondering if I would wake up in Mexico
buried in a crate of oranges
when her cool, calm, soft, compelling
voice whispered into my ear
“You’re exhausted, Sweets. Let’s get you to bed.”
I couldn’t talk. I merely nodded.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
Yeah, that shit was still going on.
She got me on the mattress and undressed me
with the proficiency of a
hospital emergency ward
climbed on top of me and started kissing me
or more like trying to stab my tongue to death
with hers.
Her breath was terrible.
Did she ever fucking brush those things?
She seemed so nice, so cool and collective
up until now but this was what it was like
in the snake pit where everyone was vicious
if you gave them time or opportunity.
She turned beast…Dragon!
I felt trapped beneath her fire.
I didn’t want this. Maybe tomorrow.
Probably never.
She was started to make me sick.
Her smell, her weight on me, her tongue, her raspy laugh
-all of it
“Baby, no. I don’t think I can do this. I feel like
my soul is dying. There’s lots of gusto in the other room.
Go find one of them.”
“Fuck that! You’re the prettiest thing here. If you
don’t like it then just shut the fuck up and lie there.”
This was abuse. I was sure of it
because it wasn’t the first time
and I just wanted to turn her over
pin her down, smile and say,
‘So what if I said that to you, huh?
What if I fucking did this to you?’
“Christ, okay.” I replied sheepishly instead.
I was weak as a kitten and this girl
was going to get what she wanted
whether I liked it or not
because at the bottom of the snake pit
it was hard to push off
what slithered all over top of you
and sometimes you couldn’t
see the dragon
until the clothes came off.
So I closed my eyes
as she began to rock
back and forth
back and forth
back and…
I drove through Mennonite country
past sleeping tractors
and unmanned booths selling
flowers and firewood.
I entered the campground
and smiled broadly at the
over-excited blonde who still
didn’t know where the ice-box was
or how to open it when she did.
I drove down to the docks beside the beach.
I pulled my car right up to a picnic table
and cleaned off a public grill that was so
rickety you had to battle with it
even to get out a few decent burgers.
Chicken was out of the question.
Trust me, I tried
-unless you like them burned and raw at the same time
only in different places.
I was enjoying my time
shirtless and smiling
in the evening sunset
when a woman came down the road with a small boy
and looked to the beach
then looked over at me.
Which way was she going to go
I wondered as I sipped my beer.
The road swung wide around where I was
so she decided to cut across the grass
the opposite way
right towards me.
“Ha!” I said to the grill.
It said nothing back.
I watched the woman come.
The evening sunlight painted her like a brush
as she walked like a queen
eyes like thrones.
Magnificence in a summer dress.
She was a poem, a painting, a motion picture.
A face to rule your heart
stared at mine with azure eyes
you could sail across towards
nothing if you wanted to -didn’t matter.
It was hopeless.
I was besotted.
It’s happened before.
It’ll happen again.
Most people only fell in love
a couple of times.
I fell in love every damn day.
Come play. Come play.
Take my heart, it’s yours.
Play with it. It’s okay if you drop it or
break it.
I don’t care. I don’t care.
I am strong. I can fix it. I can take it.
I just need to know
from that look in your eyes
for one moment like this
that you would
let me in that you would
have me and I could continue
on
smiling laughing loving
you from right here
so far away
so close.
She was right in front of me now.
The burgers were burning.
Fuck them.
Her eyes still watched me.
I could tell she was demure.
Classy. I could picture her laughing
into her tea glass in a lavish garden
hitting me with a pillow
kissing my ear
“Hello.” She said.
“Hello.” I answered, smiling.
She smiled and turned away.
The boy waved sheepishly.
I waved back.
‘Do yourself a favour, Kid.’ I thought.
‘Grow up strong and go out and fight
for somebody that’s as worthy as your mother.’
I returned my attention back to the grill
and started whistling as I flipped the burgers.
A girl soon came down the road
far too young for me
they usually were
these days.
She looked to the beach
then looked over at me.
Which way was she going to go
I wondered as I sipped my beer.
The road swung wide around where I was
so she decided to cut across the grass
the opposite way
right towards me.
“Ha!” I said to the grill.
It said nothing back.
I was reading ‘The Story of O’ by the lamp late one night when the darkness beyond the light at the far end of the building called out to me.
“Come here.” It said. I immediately recognized her voice. Reluctantly, though employed by curiosity I began to wander in the direction from where it came, stopping just outside of being consumed by complete darkness. It was such a large factory floor of which I was the sole inhabitant save for the lost souls that wandered through from time to time and most of it was kept in total darkness -all of it actually except for the small area that I had made my home. I did not trust the dark, not since it rained blood on me in the kitchen then drained all of mine in the star room. I did not feel that it was a part of me and feared it still for good reason. But when you were as alone as I was any contact, any spark of companionship brought you out and made you brave. You did things because you longed for someone else and because you felt trapped you fell easily into any trap.
“Come closer. Come into me.” She pleaded. “It’s safe. I would never hurt you.”
As I moved forward entering into the darkness the light behind me vanished completely as though I were once again walking through the sheet of blackness that Michael had used to transport me from the cellar of my home on the night that I had lost everything. There was no sound as though it were a vacuum until her voice came from right beside me.
“I love you.” She said and her fingers dug like metal across the side of my torso immediately afterwards. Pain shot through me like fire as her laughter rang through my ears. It was all I could hear, all that I could feel and it was pure terror. I spun around trying to locate where she could be but I saw only darkness and heard nothing until once again her voice breathed out onto my face from right in front of me as if she were leaning in for a kiss.
“I love you.” Once again her nails tore at the flesh across my chest where my heart was stationed. It hurt enough that the skin felt split. I cried out and swung wildly in reflex, hitting only black air.
“I will never leave you.” She whispered from behind me, so close as though she were holding me and breathing into my ear before the nails came down my back like impossibly sharpened stones.
“Stop this!” I cried as I turned and threw my fists out into the place where she had just been. “Stop tormenting me! Please!”
“We will always be together.” She replied instead as her fingers clawed down my cheek. This time instead of fighting back I sprinted off not knowing if it was in the proper direction with laughter following close behind me the whole way until after a while of running in sheer panic I saw the lamp where I had been before all this had started and it gave me the breath to go faster toward it until I was there again, on the ground looking back at the darkness that was her home.
Sure enough her voice called out to me again, sweet in tone and full of promise as though nothing had happened. “Come to me.” She pleaded. “It’s safe. I will never hurt you.”
I crumpled under the weight of her words and the memory of her taunts, her nails. It drove Bethany back right into the foreground of my mind -me standing out in the cold as battered as any man could possibly be as she looked back at me like she didn’t even know me before getting into the limo. God, what kind of person would do that to somebody they were suppose to love? What kind of dark animal would treat someone so badly when they needed them the most? I didn’t understand it. I still don’t. It has haunted me ever since because it hurt me so badly and I never wanted to feel that again because it was all that I could see for so long and that was enough to break me down into the shell that I once was. And now this comes only as a spit in my face of the pain that I lived.
You win, I thought to myself as I buried my face in my hands and screamed out in anguish. There was no release, no respite, no reason -there was only her and her pain -the pain that she brought to me with a smile and it was too much to bear because time after time all that she was, all that she became was hurt and now it’s all that I had and maybe it was all that I would ever be to anyone.
“I can’t…I can’t fucking do this anymore.” I heaved, clutching at my wounds and sobbing as I brought my head down to the cold factory floor waiting for tears but no tears came. Not one.
Not anymore.
hernanjmonzon.com 