Amnesiac
Bashing my head against a wall trying to force myself to believe. It couldn't have been just a week ago, could it? A week ago, I was in Georgia and I was with people I loved, all of us wearing the same shirt and the same pride. Two weeks ago, I was waking up beside Nightmare, wrapped up in his smell.
A week is 7 days and a day is 24 hours and so it's been only 168 hours since warm Georgian days, 336 hours since Nightmare's gentle hands and I'm forgetting already.
It was all a dream then- Maryland air, Maryland rain, Maryland people, Maryland love. I imagined the soft grass, and so the only grass I've known scratches you and sticks to your back. I imagined the rain, and so all I've known is endless sunlight, endless cloudless days. I imagined the people, and so all I've known is one kiss, one hand, one voice.
I'll walk through my old house in my head. It's spring there so the windows are open and the breezes stir the white curtains. The smell of life and soil fills up my lungs. I go from room to room, touching the walls, good walls with actual wood underneath. They're not just brick and drywall, like here. They can hold soul in them.
It's my home, not what the Other Ones turned it into. I peered in through the windows once, and there was ugly brown furniture and there were dogs that barked at me. But our fridge was still there, the fridge I used to clean with soap and vanilla. And our stove was still there, and the microwave that was installed that one fall day when I wrote for twelve hours. And the doors, those installed in June, on the gray day that Nightmare and I walked and walked and came home and slept and then walked more. And our counters and the new linoleum and the-
Bashing my head against the wall trying not to remember these things, the ones that hurt. The ones that are looking at dead people in coffins, ones you used to know, only the people at the funeral home put the wrong clothes on them. The ones that hurt with a pain that's past despair and past hopelessness. Pain that you can't even cry over.
So remember the good shit, the good fucking shit...Laughing and pillow fights and reservoirs and Babar and Starbucks and bus rides in the dark. They come only in words, in smudged paintings- whatever I wrote down in my little black book. I could describe it all to you but I would be speaking only from records written in my head...
I say out loud to me, "Damn you for being so negative." I smell my hands and they're sweet with lotion and tangy with latex. I used to be tired but not so much any more. Perhaps if I stay up all night, I'll be tired, tired enough to see patterns and shake and gasp for breath. Tired enough to cry, maybe. I seem to forget what that is whenever I come back here.
But really, I'll get bored and sleep before long, and then I'll dream about robotics and wake up and forget the dream and go through another day. Then there will be the day after that, and then another, and what little is left in my head will rot, and when the sickly-sweet stink of bad nectarine will clear out and then I will be Australia, Australia, Australia.
If I die to find that there is hell waiting for me, it will be this.
A week is 7 days and a day is 24 hours and so it's been only 168 hours since warm Georgian days, 336 hours since Nightmare's gentle hands and I'm forgetting already.
It was all a dream then- Maryland air, Maryland rain, Maryland people, Maryland love. I imagined the soft grass, and so the only grass I've known scratches you and sticks to your back. I imagined the rain, and so all I've known is endless sunlight, endless cloudless days. I imagined the people, and so all I've known is one kiss, one hand, one voice.
I'll walk through my old house in my head. It's spring there so the windows are open and the breezes stir the white curtains. The smell of life and soil fills up my lungs. I go from room to room, touching the walls, good walls with actual wood underneath. They're not just brick and drywall, like here. They can hold soul in them.
It's my home, not what the Other Ones turned it into. I peered in through the windows once, and there was ugly brown furniture and there were dogs that barked at me. But our fridge was still there, the fridge I used to clean with soap and vanilla. And our stove was still there, and the microwave that was installed that one fall day when I wrote for twelve hours. And the doors, those installed in June, on the gray day that Nightmare and I walked and walked and came home and slept and then walked more. And our counters and the new linoleum and the-
Bashing my head against the wall trying not to remember these things, the ones that hurt. The ones that are looking at dead people in coffins, ones you used to know, only the people at the funeral home put the wrong clothes on them. The ones that hurt with a pain that's past despair and past hopelessness. Pain that you can't even cry over.
So remember the good shit, the good fucking shit...Laughing and pillow fights and reservoirs and Babar and Starbucks and bus rides in the dark. They come only in words, in smudged paintings- whatever I wrote down in my little black book. I could describe it all to you but I would be speaking only from records written in my head...
I say out loud to me, "Damn you for being so negative." I smell my hands and they're sweet with lotion and tangy with latex. I used to be tired but not so much any more. Perhaps if I stay up all night, I'll be tired, tired enough to see patterns and shake and gasp for breath. Tired enough to cry, maybe. I seem to forget what that is whenever I come back here.
But really, I'll get bored and sleep before long, and then I'll dream about robotics and wake up and forget the dream and go through another day. Then there will be the day after that, and then another, and what little is left in my head will rot, and when the sickly-sweet stink of bad nectarine will clear out and then I will be Australia, Australia, Australia.
If I die to find that there is hell waiting for me, it will be this.