You & Me

(A room lit by light that enters through a crack – yellow and bright but not enough to make the room light up fully. Two people.)

Edward: What did we do last night?
He is lying on his back looking up at the ceiling, spangled with rings of brown light.
Cynthia: Why? Don’t you remember?
She is curled up next to him, but on her side, speaking into the cold air just outside the bed.
Edward: I think I could.
He turns his head and looks over at her.
Cynthia turns her head towards him to meet his eyes. She is disappointed; not because of what happened, but because she was hoping he’d offer her some comfort or explanation.
Edward: I remember the circus and your mother getting wet, and a child I didn’t know.
Cynthia: Yea, I remember you spilled your soup on my skirt. It was the red corduroy one you hated touching.
Edward: Fat ribs give me the heebie-jeebies.
Cynthia: You don’t seem to mind reaching under it though.
Edward: Was that why the child cried?
Cynthia is now facing him. She placed a hand on his bare chest. He’s slightly damp from being asleep.
Cynthia: You never shared your toys when you were little.
Edward: I shared them with you.
Cynthia: Only when I came over with Taf or with Wham bars.
Edward: Remember when I puked blue?
Cynthia: Edward?
Edward: You never came over with Wham bars. There were other things. Things you liked poking me and prodding me with. You were a dirty little girl.
Cynthia: Edward.
She looks at him like he is being silly.
Edward: What? You were. The glorious Cyn in her teal dress with pink stockings. Your mother is color blind and I didn’t even think women could be.
Cynthia: I never had pink stockings. I never wore stockings. You have a bizarre memory.
Edward: But I’m not wrong about the closet am I? That happened.
Cynthia squirms gleefully.
Cynthia: That happened. That happened.
Edward: Yea.
He sighs loudly.
They are both quiet for a long time. Cynthia looks and him now and then, expecting him to talk about last night. She is disappointed he is taking so long. Maybe these memories are just memories. Things that happened, like Wham bars, they were ok then. It was ok to puke blue if you were eight.
Cynthia: Ed?
Edward: Yea?
Another two minutes pass. To Cynthia it feels like 20 minutes.
Cynthia: Ed?
Edward: I don’t know Cyn – I just don’t know… But I know you had pink stockings and I know that you beat me up once, and I know that you put the toothbrush down the wrong way before you put the paste on.
Cynthia: What does that mean?
Edward: How long ago did we wake up? How am I supposed to know already? Why don’t you tell me what you think.
In the dark Cynthia allows tears to well up her eyes and she reaches up to her face to contain the tears, and scratches her head a little so that Edward doesn’t look over.
He’s occupied, anyway. She sees he is still staring up at the ceiling. Running his hands through his hair over and over.
He’s elsewhere, clearly, thinks Cynthia. She thinks hard and deliberately about his shortcomings. His scars, his strange nose, his thin legs. But the tears well up again. Despite.
Edward: Cynthia…Cynthia…how long has it been since you learned you can’t fake tears for a head scratch. You might as well be turned over writhing and yelping. I am not saying anything at all – remember we take different amounts of time to process different things.
His words seem to make sense but she is already on her way to an all out bawl.
Edward: Plus when you cry the tears get all salty and then you turn red and break out the next day. After which I have to assure you that you are pretty – and tomorrow I have to go to Florida for a day trip and don’t know whether you’ll be willing to come along.
Cynthia: Really?
Edward: Yea, I told you so many times, if you need to get away, you can always tell me. I’m usually always going somewhere.
Cynthia: Mmhmm.
It wasn’t what she expected. She never knew where she was with Edward. He pulled her in, then let her out again. As easy as a deep spring breath.
Cynthia: I’m not sure I can go.
Edward: Ok.
Cynthia: I’d like to, you know. But I have to work.
She carefully runs a finger up and down a part of his shoulder. To test him. To see if he is really there.
Edward: Its ok, Cyn, I understand. Work is important.
Cynthia: But you know, I could be convinced.
She looks directly at him, trying to discern some flicker of happiness. Something. Edward.
Edward: Nah, I’m not going to push you. What time is it?
Cynthia: Its…..3:45.
Edward: aaaaarrrghh. Eary, but almost there.
Cynthia: The best part of the night.
Edward: mmhmm.
She notices he’s closed his eyes again and pulled up the sheets. Ready to fall back asleep. No part of their bodies is touching. She can feel the faint heat coming from him. But it is faint. She leans over and kisses his chest and he opens his eyes.
Cynthia: Why can’t I ever read your face? What is it that sits behind there?
Edward: There are a lot of things that I know about, that I am comfortable with, that I can work through, but they still play in my mind. And when I disappear think of it as me rolling a coin over my knuckles, knowing that it won’t help.
Cynthia looks away. She just wants to know. Once and for all. All the words in between don’t really matter.
Cynthia: Yea, I think I know.
She broaches the subject again, tentatively. It takes almost all her effort. She notices now how her mouth tastes: a little old tasting. It could be better. She notices her legs are in an awkward position, but she doesn’t dare move.
Cynthia: So, what happened last night?
Edward: You know just as well as I do Cyn. We’ve known each other, we know each other, and last night was about two people who know each other stepping over the boundaries and now the big question isn’t what happened last night but what are we going to do today.
Edward stays silent for a bit – he is nervous and finds himself feeling too much, caring too much, and wants to be certain it isn’t a conveyor belt.
Cynthia: I don’t know Edward. I never know what you are thinking or what you want. Well, I do. Sorry, I do.
She doesn’t want to anger him. She’s got him here. Next to her. What else does she want anyway? He’s unavailable. Even when he’s next to her, he’s planning his life. His thoughts are about his work and his next girl, or his new car.
Edward: Let’s do what we did last night and see if it works again…
Even as he says it – he realizes that she won’t receive it the way he thinks it. He wants her to lighten up – to realize that he cares but they have to go slow. That he wants the same thing she does, perhaps even more, but…
Cynthia stays quiet.
Edward: Look at me. Don’t think like you. Think like me. And not the way you think I think but the way I think. Lose your interpretations and watch my words. I want to be…
Cynthia: You want to do what we did last night?
Edward: Yea.
He jumps out of bed and to the telescope standing by the window.
Edward: Let’s see if they are up to something boring old fucks.
Cynthia: Oh. Yea, ok.
She was thinking that perhaps they would re-enact the second part of the night. Maybe he was sleepwalking. Words and elaborate plays didn’t fill in the space she wanted filled. She wanted him.
She got up and stood a foot away from him as he squinted into the scope.
Cynthia: So, is our happy couple doing the deed?
Edward: Nah, seems like they left some candles burning on the kitchen table and went to sleep.
Cynthia reaches around his waist and slips her hand into his boxers. She slides them down. She presses up against him as she slips in front of him and feels him slide up against her thigh.
Her heart is racing. What if he doesn’t want her? It’s a chance, but she forces herself to take it. She stands there, pressed to him, waiting for him to step back; to say no; to say “Cyyyyn” the way he does when he is done. Done for now. For months, for a year or two. Another surprise, he slides his hand down her side and says: “if you want it, take it, don’t beat around your bush.” She looks up at him and gives him the dirty look. He wraps his arms around her.
Edward: Just tonight, Cyn. Nothing more. Do you want it?
Cynthia: I see it now. You’re scared that you’ll make the same mistake here as you did before. That you will stop seeing me as me. You can’t be cold to me, you’ve never been before. There’s something more to it. You’re defending yourself.
Edward: Don’t be silly Cyn.
Cynthia: Call me Cynthia and stop looking at me like that. You love me.
Edward: Cynthia.
Cynthia: That’s better – now start acting like a man and take what you got. What you get- what you have. Here.
Edward: Cyn. Cynthia. We have a history.
Cynthia: Ok, Edward. Here it is. Here are my cards, and I don’t care if you never want to see me again, or if I ruin your memories and if you want to return my Greenbird bike with the training wheels still on them. I am in love with you. I don’t know why. Its not the familiarity, I thought it was. I tried 5 years ago when you first left. Then I thought it was just that you weren’t like the other guys I dated. You’re so…different from them. Matt, he had this dark hair and really big muscles. Or, like Frank who was so popular and so, I was so, just so many girls were jealous of me. No – what I’m saying is that I know your ugly bits and the things that made my run the past. But I can’t deny it. I just love you.
Cynthia looks down now. She is exhausted. She should just have said yes, and they would have been in bed right now, breathing hard. Feeling his hands on her. Even temporarily, they knew where to go. She could have broached his all later, maybe next summer. Or maybe when they were older.
Edward: I do too.
Cynthia: Do what?
She looks at him. He is standing by the window. His boxers a little askew. He suddenly appears a little unattractive to her. Is this who she really wants?
Edward: I want us too. I want this, Cyn.
Cynthia: I think I’ll go now.
She turns and walks out the door.
Edward: No, Cyn. Wait.
Cynthia: Why?
So that he can reject her again? At least this way, she was closing the door herself.
Edward: Just wait.
They faced each other in the dark room. The sun was edging its way up now across the horizon and a reddish glow lit up the corners of the room and edges of furniture they couldn’t see before.
Edward: Cyn, just wait.
Cynthia: Ok, Ed.
Edward: Cynthia, I was looking at your lips this morning and thought to myself, I would like if my children had those lips. Perhaps my chin, but they should have those lips.
Cynthia takes a step towards him. She feels the pinprick of tears starting again. She tries to control them. But then she just lets them fall. And Ed is just a few feet away.

Darkness In Happy Mood

Gristly earth between heat cracked toes
Emanations of gazes, a hundred of them
Men with shoulders edged, fenced faces
And girls with straight bangs and licked lips
Crimson coated with smooth black skin
I look up, i look down, i look up
And again I dig in, mistook for
Aged, ugly brethren
Of midnight frosted fingers
Endless back and forth, quagmire earth
I fall on tired knees gristly earth in ripped fingernails
All the pneumatic doors shut, and shut and shut
And i hear them all
Minutes in seconds
Day to day the sun barely sets and then is up again
Forbidden from ways and cut paths
I pull to a halt
Only to start, mercilessly onwards
Hushed, and bent, step to step to step.

Queenish

The queen rests bored in a garden
spades and squires at her elbows
and yet she dreams of that delinquent
all rags and bones and slings and stones

Oozin

Lanterns remind me of ponies and ponies of puritans
(In a lake with suds of lye and lines of panned gold)
Puritans create images of hats that sound like
hannibal and hannibal of carthaginian flats
(before they were swallowed up and sold)

Lust

Misty eyed ladies
Hiding behind fronds
In bark thongs
Fitful and trembling
Cuticles split and eyes aglaze
Are the warm limbs and melodies
Of my hurried teenage fantasies

Was it me?

Sentences finished by willpower
Punctuated by quirks in my personality
Perhaps cause mommy was a quiet girl
Or my love was lacking or didn't hug me enough
Or perhaps daddy was lost and a little scared
And i did too much to cover it up with words

Alice

A lonely sheep speaks to a woman with large ears
Short from the war
An unbilicus uncut
Come she says I have a present

Grass as green as grasshoppers
Willows that smile
And a tasty treat too
Of women in heat
And rays of sun
Warm but salty

Our Image

We bathed together today
You dragged the tub into the heather
I arched and you pulled
Wellies to make the naked dash
To screen doors and closed shutters
Covered thickly with bluebird shellac.

It's Not For You

words, sharp like
mistakes, memories, and you
crawl in to make amends

oil slicks prevent
the life-bloom again

cuts thin and deep
barely cradling our
brittle frames

You.

Once back to back
we swivel to meet
cheek to cheek
in an unlit place

By effort of earth
and travelling light
we see the rotund
tracks of our trip

Long, precipitous,
sometimes endless
plains and green
slowly rusting to
a robust Fall

Dawn drags the soft lilt
of a temperate tune
like a flip of a coin
so enduring
and also mired
in furrows of concern

What neatly
nature lays
Also, mischief
displays itself
in winters ices
and wordy silence

With you, ivy
climbs its mottled
pace, serenly
and allows itself
to display
the kinks of time

Does It Have To?

you are
all but mythical

a blur sometimes
in and out
a vision

not really real
but real nonetheless

born of brain
fed by time

but a brush
of fingertips

welcomed more
today than yesterday

Escape

Fealty overrated
A self forgotten
I recapture moments
Between the gulf
And the gut.

Pairs

She had good bedside manner

Her figure was lithe and thin

A gust from the east of nowhere

Five ominous rain soaked brumes

Ship up ship down and whisky

Thick-fingered men with bronzed ears

N said to her there is beauty in a squall

S said to him let's lean over the wet rails

Departure Days

Departure days childhood beats torn
Lights are lit fever subsided
Rigamortis
Drum beats death tatoo
A smile, no, a smirk - a thought
Fear dissipates then snaps back
A dip, a trench, a well, no choice
Those old languid thoughts distant
My shadow falls in their direction
Ribs strain, cornea burn, a choke hold

Parade

Seven turns on trumpets worn
With silver bells and faces shorn
Penguin suits and prettly flutes
Women wearing flitty skirts

Tassles drawn and kites aloft
Helium haze, men in brass and buttons unfazed
Undone laces, merry eyes and squinty faces
Boy at home, to fill my spaces

Pleasure Ridden

She chills me when i'm warm

I moderate reactions

Its nice to belong

And not be swayed by false elation

She makes me desire loneliness

And yet i go to meet her

My days punctuated by cold

And my night autumnal deaths

Tentative

Everything's been said

Except for bits of untruth

That linger between us

Despite our fillers

Like specs of dirt

You haven't even told me

Your name

Did We?

Conversations where

We speak about

Things we are not

Actually speaking

About, things we are not

Treading on eggshells

Half leaning in

Half staring out the window

Some need

And some forced ambivalence

The road curves ahead

We say all the right things

And still we go home and cleanse ourselves

Wondering.

We Wanted To Continue

I'm ignited like never before I toss, turn
You wake me up breathing heavily sweating want
A fever on my skin, the blankets melt
Tossed off a light breeze joins our sweat and accentuates the heat
All sounds come muffled, as if from afar
Bodies failing at becoming each other take - he grabs her hair

Dog

Yield at the corner
Bare left over the sidewalk
At length you come to a precipice
Fall off
Trucks will blare horns, keep going
Block traffic
The hill is steep, walk diagonally
Let grills bludgeon you
Leave the road, come to an empty lot
Limp silently, do not disturb the world
Find a warm hood to lean against