(no subject)
could it have been just so
as simple as these odd 343 pages staring back at me
as if in surprise
i could not tell
i tried to draw a deep breath
but the pain in the chest
the pain in the chest
i close my bloodshot eyes
how hard it is
to breathe tonight
when this dumb pain
languishly echoes in the labyrinth
of the torso through
the thickness of walls
the standing still
the pylons of the concrete circus
through greased yellowing wallpapers
bearing tracks of mosquito genocide and
spider executions
gathering dust and bearing witness to
no body
through the air of sloth and grovelling impotence
tracks of rapid jostling torso being torn down and up
and inside out
pierced through million cells each bearing
prisoners for life
jostling yet too alive to be swallowed
it circles shakes in random fits of blinding colours
it flings its thinning mane in ritual dancing spree
it's violent
not more violent still than them
than they would like to think
but they is us and me and you and our moth-bitten routine
of days and nights and all those times that linger in never
they say that violence is born of lack
they say of the imagination
the inability to grasp in every detail the way your nose bones
give in to slithering pressure of someone's fist of copper and
crust and squeak and blood in warm metallic streams
rushes to fill the cracks and swarm the savaged tissues
or how a knife dives into flesh carressing roughly the
intricate parastaltic knot of bowls
as soft as melting butter
flesh bones and tissues held together by the air
of arrogance and terror
the rotting body with its life prolonged by temporal
treatments beautifiction
take that away and seems like nothing's left
no body and no trace of your existence
decay is life caught up in slow unyielding motion
repetitions
violence and gaping lack of the imagination
the inability to feel the other's pain
indifference compassion through rejection
love and reluctance pitched hatred and sensible cowardice
undying self-loathing shielded by vanity timid intimidation
staggering indesicion deciding what is best
complacency riding self-sacrifices pride
diminishing frustration mirrored fears
delusions learnt by heart and dull obsessions thundering mood swings
so common sense irrational devotions
in the absence of devotees
counted and relished betrayals hypocrisy half-truths
the narrowness of minds and gaping holes
nostalgia pushing the wheel of wishful thinking
perplexities
an contemplation eighing options
recklessness and fear again procrastination
futility repulsion and self-pity
numbness
disgust derangement vigour
virility usterity indulgence
humility and endless shame
repentance?
i don't need to imagine
i remember
the knife pressed to my back
another hand holding me down pushing over
the twisting of the wrists
blind street lighted by lanterns
lights in windows
faces staring
i remember the anger indignation
no fear and no terror but fury
that bursted my lungs as i shrieked
and yet no one listened
but heard
for everyone should mind the business
of their own
i remember the humiliation
of sitting in a room
the size of a cupboard with
a balding officer sizing me
up
his contemptuous stare and the tie of
wet asphalt
and his little notebook
and the interrogation as if i
committed a crime
the crime of becoming a victim
failing the test on self-defence
i remember the looks
and the sneer
and the grins
and there's nothing we can do
please sign here
i remember the car
and the offer which bordered
on a firm demand
i am not a hooker
i am just trying to make my way home
in the night walking down
the endless highway
yes all 25 miles
as i do night after night after night
i remember the holes in my soles
i remember being searched
for drugs still remember sleeping
in a police station
with a bag of donuts dripping with oil at my side
and a copy of On the Road
sadly ironic or what
i remember slipping and hitting
the pavement
head almost smashed to the heart of the skull
thundering
noise blurring the vision
being led by someone to a side street
with their hand gripping my waist
i remember getting sick in the grotesquely dirty restroom
of a sideway cafe
helpless alone in a forsaken african town
and a stranger wiping my forehead with
a wet cloth
stroking my arm
i remember the glares
and remarks and the laughter
i remember being a piece of meat
walking down the street in the impossible
heat
xenophobia rising from my guts
spilling in curses
pigs barbarians brainless fuckers
but i know that i am that piece of stale meat
it's a fact of objective reality
in this point fixed
in space time and memory
i devotedly tried to obliterate it
to mutilate it to make it look
repulsive and horrid
so that no one would register
this piece of meat awkwardly sliding down
the unknown streets
wanting just to take in
the air and the sun
the beauty of the place it'll never see again
i remember
rides insults propositions
spending a night in a sterile hotel room
with a psycho borderline paedophile
i remember the guilt
shame
nothing has ever happened
in that locked room smelling of linen
and aftershave
but the guilt and the shame
grip the throat
and sometimes i think
maybe i do not remember
what if it did
and i cannot bring myself
to face what my memory has denied me
could it be worse than this
i remember hitting a child
gripping it
in a frenzied urge to shake
the life out of it
the hatred and the shame
ripping black holes in the place
where the heart should have been
i remember sleeping in a stranger's bed
fully clothed drunk and stoned
dreaming of Iggy Pop and Glastonbury
wanting to cling to the warmth of the body
next to me
and helpless
disarmed by the honesty
decency
acceptance
that stabbed me through the
bone of my heart
ever dissolving into the blackest of holes
how can it bear
how can it beat and know
that all atrocities that march
through veins are there to stay
and feed
mature and torture
how can it be that it aches
so much
what good it makes to know
right from wrong
from all the wrongs i have
wholeheartedly committed
and will still
still willing
inevitably
i remember putting you down
stroking your paws holding them
for the ruthless life of mine
when you tried to escape from the box
your tiny coffin
i remember your eyes
the terror the unspeakable fear
and the struggle
how can you let me die
how can you grip my paws and bleed with tears
knowing all the way
watching me die
silent and stilled of all motion
i remember another coffin
bigger
with orthodox garments
i remember not feeling a thing
crying mechanically
like a machine with no feelings
not recognizing the face
the figure lying so still
i remember watching my mother
wailing putting down the phone
i remember my arm around her shoulders
lifeless like a cord of an inhumane machine
i could not relate to the grief
to what it is to be human
to feel compassion towards another alien human
compassion was just a word that needed
to be executed
all the compassion had died
in that box as i buried my heart
in it by your side
letting the black hole do whatever
it pleases
useless heart now rots under these
stars that show no mercy
that has shown you none
that glare and walk on and explode
death before lightless dishonour
i remember feeding hopes
with lies that were true at the time
i remember how hard it was
to tell you i love you
inaudibly adding
in my own way
whatever that was
and i meant it
can you believe it
i remember your hazel eyes
and navy darkness of your hair
cut short last time i saw you
i remember uttering meaningless
i will come back
nothing will change
and remember believing
in what i had said that summer day
sitting with you on the stiff bench
my head on your shoulder
your serene chestnut eyes glued to the
concrete
you were too kind for your own good
you might have been our salvation
while my course was at the utter destruction
proving to myself yet again that
nothing will ever work
that all i touch turns into collateral damage
better leave well alone
might have made you feel worthless
and used and fooled all the way through
possibly that was the outcome in your final cut
4 years later i tried to apologize
and explain that there were no lies
that it was genuine, true
then and there
that i loved you in my own crooked way
(don't we all)
but what could i say and what did it matter
i don't even know whether you are alive
better leave well alone?
i remember another pair of eyes
most painful of them all
the memory that locks me into fits
of misery which is like purest junk
that tears the chords of my black hole
cornflower watering as i drag
my checkered suitcase to the
sliding doors
i remember
the letters remember
forcing you to leave well alone
the course is aimed at the utter destruction
no passengers are allowed on board
i was in pieces, my own collateral damage
beaten by my own
untrembling fists
death before happiness
death before sanity
death before honour
death before everything else
is love really a cold steel?
mine must be a rusty knife of iron
ripping through abject tissues
like a forlorn blind child searching
for mother's womb
violent in its weakness and bluntness
is it my lack of the imagination
that now and then does nothing
to retrieve the blade
or is it frenzied thirst for suffering
that thrusts it ever deeper and mutilates
all that was once so serene and dear
i remember sitting alone
days on end not talking to anyone
but myself aloud in foreign voices
arguing laughing and crying
at first i could manage
i could bear intoxicating isolation
i could force myself to polite conversations
with friends which i'm steadily losing to
battles with common sense and measure
but there is one last resort
the dead and the speechless
they do not care that my body decays
but the mind ever so
more importantly that i regrettably happen to have one
that my cycling fits of irrational rage
are followed by bursts of joyous bliss
when i want to hug the whole world
to kiss its wounds and make peace?
self-obsessed and absorbed ignorant
frail bound to remain silent when
the guts are wrenched by a hundred
sour screams
don't let me out
let me in
fixed on death and inhumane tortures
testing how far this piece of meat can drag
itself on its knees bleeding internally
faithless rejecting
all kindness expelling all hope
yet hoping for something
or someone
how can it be allowed to exist
its memory serves it too well
for every wrongdoing betrayal
and lie every fallacy rejection
and numbness
tiny silver paws in the coffin
there is nothing to show in defence
closure is never an option
better leave well alone