Laundry

Every time I put a clean pillow case on my pillow I see the bloodstain from the time my ex-boyfriend's nose bled in the middle of the night. I think about how much he apologized for it in the morning. Then I think about all the things he didn't apologize for. The things he never will apologize for. That bloodstain makes me instantly nostalgic; not for him, but for that time when things felt like they were working out. "Working out" meaning the way I thought things were supposed to happen. 


I don't know what that way is anymore. 


Lately I've been down. I'd like to be up. The shower drain is clogged with more hair than I remember having and I have to struggle daily wondering where all my cigarettes went. I've been prescribed pills by friends who aren't pharmacists. They help. The friends and the pills, but only until morning. 


I need to write more stories. I need to climb out of this. I need to go to bed. I need a massage. 


Bottom line: It's late (or early depending on how you tell time), I'm drunk, the sleeping pill is kicking in, I needed to put some words down tonight, and if they're all spelled correctly I will sleep soundly. 

Dear Mr. Carver-

     You said all we have is words. I think of this often; when filling these pages; before I display my heart on new tables, in unfamiliar houses that smell like home; while I replay or write future conversations. But I do not have the right words tonight.
     There are few dark roads or empty parking lots in this town I haven’t littered with cigarette butts and the contents of my head. The car stereo will never be as loud as I need it to be. It plays words written by men I’ve never met, juxtaposed in perfect lines. They’ve all felt this before. This isn’t new to anyone.
     With every night lit by passing headlights my voice gets softer, my tongue dry, it gets harder to weave the right words. My mouth moves in familiar patterns, silently trying to recall a time when the noise it made drew the hairs on the back of someone’s neck toward the sky. Affected.
     I always meant to speak simply, even in my long-winded sentences. Tonight, I feel so simply, without, that silence seems like the only thing I can say. It’s been a while since I’ve heard my own voice. There are no mirrors for that.
     I admire you for your simplicity. For the scenes you paint with brevity. For your words. For the weight you’ve placed upon them. I believed you when you said they are all that we have and we must make them right. But tonight I wonder if all we have are the words what can be done when there’s nothing left to say?

-K

"That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones."

Things I'm Not Good At...

Letting fires burn out.

     There has been a fire in my life. I think it started the moment I finished the last story I wrote for a grade. This fire has burned deep and loud. I think it might have come close to dying a few times. Either way it scorched my skin.
     It seems to be dying down. I long for the warmth it gave off in a hazy fit of recollection the few minutes before I finally fall asleep. I wake up and burn the same way.
     I've had a consistent record of dowsing fires and running, as fast I could, away from the embers and what they all felt like once. I've tried to fan flames, wasting my breath, frantically breaking my lungs. I can't find enough water anywhere this time. I'm scared.

     So I will change.

     I will let this fire linger. Watch as the flames turn into a faint orange glow. The smoke it gives off is suffocating me. I will shift. I will get some air, let this fire breathe and change. I would pray to God if I believed that time, free time, and a strong gust of wind will spark the flames into the blaze I imagine it can be. I will stoke this fire will all the strength I can muster, but I will not inhale this smoke anymore. I will guard my lungs. I will not inhale you.

"So let's go out west and bask in the overcast..."

I hate how some songs and some weather still reminds me of you. Metal love songs. Ditching class on mornings that felt like this afternoon, to slip out of my jeans and under your sheets, just to get some sleep. I keep thinking about that time I told you I liked cold kisses. Memories are fine I guess, just not today.

Recycle

Is it possible to feel so much older and so young at the same time? To know, with your whole heart that you are accidentally submerged in love again, but that your whole heart can never, might never, and probably wasn't ever immersed in the kind of love you have to give? To constantly yearn for the best, but know the best is only the least of the worst? To be surrounded by ghosts, but feel like the only one who remembers what dying felt like?
Dramatic? Yes, but it's Tuesday.
The season is changing again. We're running ahead of the dying leaves, black ice, and two-day-old cups of chai. We're running out of pavement. I can feel it giving way beneath my feet. I'm still running, like your mouth about our unedited lives while you scratch out the adjectives you used to own with a blood red marker you keep next to your mascara. You'll be the best story he's ever read.
I am slowing to a jog, coming to some metaphorical crossroads between 'through' or 'around'. We've all seen my pattern, the situations I haunt. My clumsy wade through the mess of lovers, friends, family, finances, hopes, habits, and insecurities I've accumulated since the day I blew out the speakers in that piece of shit Cadillac. 
It's dirty. It's exhausting. It's tough on your phone bill. 
I'm sorry. And I mean it. I mean every word I say. Even when I'm the only one who hears. 


We know I'll walk straight through it again, like I never saw it coming. I'll still be better acquainted with your voicemail. I'll scribble another name on the lists of ghosts. You won't hear from me in the morning.