the unsent portion

i wish i didn't feel obligated to do this, and i wish i knew if i was picking at old wounds by doing so. do you read them? delete them on sight? or maybe you just ignore that email account altogether, and there's six or seven years of christmas emails from me sitting in there, unread, unnoticed. i hope it doesn't hurt, if you read them. but i think it bothers you more that i hope and wish for things related to you, i imagine you just want me to move on completely, to forget about you entirely, to stop stop stop all this nonsense. i imagine us both with this same gaping hole in our lives, this great inner sadness that lurks and lingers and occasionally wells up to swallow us whole; i picture our mutual searches for love, as we try to forget what could never be. and i see you, unable to let go because i cannot let go. i imagine us both caught in a web; when i move, it hurts you, and when i don't move, it hurts me. it feels as though i've doomed us both, and that is the guilt i will never live down. i loved too much, i loved too hard, i smothered and crushed and drained the life from you, all in the name of love, love, love.

if i could do it all again, i wouldn't do it at all, except i'd do it all the same, because i'd get just as caught up, and feel just as unstoppable, like a movie where you know the ending but try to scream at the actors, no, don't, stop... this is torture, and i do it to myself, just me, me and no one else. i would stop doing this to us every year, just stop sending the letters, but i need it. i don't know why, but i need it.

everything reminds me of something about you, i'm sorry if that hurts to hear, i'm sorry for being sorry, i'm sorry...

recurring themes

so i had this dream last night, and while a lot of the setting was familiar, things didn't happen the way i'm used to. call it what you will, but i felt like there was a hand on my shoulder while i explored the same old ground, guiding my steps along a path i already knew but refusing to allow hesitation or deviation. driving north as always, nearing canada, but this time it's not me behind the wheel - it's dad, or something with enough authority over my psyche to translate as "dad" in dreamland. dad and i are going somewhere, brushing the canadian border, when he mentions Her. "she lives right near here, doesn't she?" he says. "yeah," i say, "couple hours away." "do you wanna go? we can spare the time, and i know you really miss this girl." suddenly i freeze, an unreasonable terror slowly creeping over me, at the thought of actually seeing her again. it was the sort of fear i've known few times in my life, a fulfillment of the worst paranoias, the ultimate in "getting caught". before i knew it we were on our way, "dad" taking no further role but to inexorably take me there. it is important that he was driving - in my dreams, i always drive. if i find myself going somewhere i don't want to, i turn the wheel. when the mind has conjured such glorious landscapes and impossible features as to boggle itself, i slow down. dad never did either of these things.

so we got there, at some point. the town had a four letter name that started with O and may have been "Omaj", a rather strange misspelling of "Homage". i didn't get to wander and enjoy it, suddenly street maps were forming and even though the town was wrong and she's not even there anymore it was the same as i wasn't sure i remembered it anymore - down that last long stretch, left on vega, second house on the left. she didn't meet me in the yard like back then, and there was none of that amazing movie-style running-leap-hug in the middle of the airport like i am so fond of remembering. i didn't even get a slap in the face. she answered the door and our eyes met and we couldn't say anything. she looked dead, like something had sucked all the life out of her - not in a cartoony way, or a literal way, but the same way you might say a coworker looks dead after an 80 hour work week. the door was open, and her face didn't change its expression, and i felt a deep seated sadness relax, just a little, as some of it came to the surface. at this point in the dream, emotion trumps reason enough that everything just fades.

there isn't much left to recall, after that. just dad, dragging me to see my "long lost love", only to find that the years have taken their toll, and reality never lives up to dreams. kinda meta, don't you think, my dreams referencing other dreams? not just referencing them, but correcting them, and kind of maybe mocking them a little bit? i dunno.

the mayan long count ends at 7:15am tomorrow. that's about ten hours away. i'll be at work, taking a carefully timed smoke break, facing east.

long unloved window

where did my ghost go?
she's not in the attic,
there's nothing up there
but boxes of static.
the trapdoor she slept in
is covered in rust,
the window she gazed through
all moldy with dust.
i came here to listen,
i came here by choice,
and by god i've forgotten
the sound of her voice.
with a sigh so loud
it would frighten the cattle,
there's no reason to linger,
so, come now, to battle.

magic is hard

i rose early
to be the one to spark the flame
to guide you in
to brighten your future
i rose early
to shake free dust in the sunrise
to create a cloud
to mark my passing forever

as the morning creeps across my walk
i double check my rings
meant to open the seals ahead
then in empty halls alive with wind
i trace anew my glyphs
meant to keep all stomachs fed

someone had to cast the spell
to make your evening soothing
someone had to speak the words
to get your fingers moving
someone had to cast the spell
to keep away the panic
it's not easy being a wizard
when no one believes in magic

hold

the fabric grows thin
day emulsified with dreams
sherbet melting slowly
but nineties kids smile
so quickly it seems
while a toe in the eighties
broke the rest of our hearts
with a fervor i've long forgotten

hold the line, dear lovers,
i swear the day will break

novemblues

xenogears and radiohead. yeah, it's a late 90s sort of morning, with the obvious anachronistic bits scattered about to drag me back to reality (xenogears on an emulator played with an xbox controller, in rainbows material)... i feel like i've gotten to know somebody better, in their absence. it's unhealthy, because i no longer have any business knowing them so well. still, it helps frame my own past, to put some things better into perspective. these two things effected my life a surprising amount back around the (sigh) "turn of the millenium". would we have laughed together about that, then held hands as we realized we were really growing old together? whatever the answer, i shouldn't care. i shouldn't! but thom is singing,


I'll drown my beliefs
To have your babies
I'll dress like your niece
And wash your swollen feet
Just don't leave
Don't leave
I'm not living
I'm just killing time
Your tiny hands
Your crazy kitten smile
Just don't leave
Don't leave
And true love waits
In haunted attics
And true love lives
On lollipops and crisps
Just don't leave
Don't leave
Just don't leave
Don't leave,

while fei insists,

In those dreams,
I loved one woman...
No matter the day,
no matter the era...
That did not change...
Nor did her name...

perhaps i'm doomed. perhaps this is what i came here to learn, of unrequited love with no obvious shelf life, of spiraling outward with a clear view of the only one i'd drag along, just out of reach, just beyond hearing. you know, you wouldn't think so, but i really do go out and live, when i can. she submerges, beneath the waves of my subconscious, and arm in arm i can step out into the night with brothers and sisters and would-be lovers, and my smiles feel genuine, and the laughs aren't forced - though, that's probably the liquor laughing.

but when, eventually, relentlessly, these quiet moments arrive, and momentum ceases, and i stop to look through the window, there is always a chill - a queer chill, cheek against the glass, wind seeking passage along unprotected spine. it is not unwelcome; it can only remind me of tenderness, of cold fingers seeking warmth, of snow reflected in wide eyes.

i am proud of the life i have built in your absence, and i am aware that i should have long ago stopped wishing that things could have happened differently. but there is an honesty within me that will not be denied, and i miss you.



oh, excuse me. for a minute there, i lost myself, i lost myself...

dusty muses

fall has arrived!
and as i raise myself up
to greet the brightest
kaleidoscope of days
this worn-down city
can muster,
i coax blood
back into timid joints.

for i must scurry about
this worried mess,
this monument to absence,
in search of history -
yeah, in search of that
aging, neglected motivation;
by god,
i know she's here somewhere,
lovely muse,
lonely muse,
a girl all covered in dust...

soon, it is the pens creaking to life,
the gears greased with promises of
whatever it is that gears desire.
i hover somewhere
between the living and dead
and open my heart
(though not as wide as my eyes)
to attempt once more
to retain something
from the ghosts
who float
here.