endless rain into a paper cup

it’s been a long time since i’ve been on here, and it’s also been quite a while since i’ve done a freewrite.  so tonight i thought i’d tackle both of those things.  i set my pandora station to feist and went at it.  observe.  there are twists and turns and it’s very stream of consciousness with changes in narrator and in overall theme.  and it is decidedly not autobiographical.

thousands of hours are ours,
where towers
of fresh blooming blasts of major-chord love
shower over a pair of green-eyed kids, needing each other so badly
and showing it so well
it’s a noonday bouquet of crazy i’m here to stay love
with stenciled smiles and big loopy sparkles in our eyes
it’s a burningtorchingsearing unbelievable way to know someone
an unendingunquenchableunfathomable ecstasy of time.

a starlight seam on a jacket that’s been worn and worn too long
like an old song that plays for you the same yet different each time
warming yet refreshing
a pillow that you just fluffed
a perfect fifth, a resolved cadence, a bar of chocolate

two bars of chocolate

it’s the light lilac of summer – the smell of it, the beautiful purple, the lazy sun
the way days melt, the way ice cubes melt, the way i melt,
it’s wasting mornings and laughing and laughing and laughing,
chlorine and confectionery kisses
towels and chairs and life.

fingernails that lengthen and scritchscratch at the wall, at skin
vibrant stripes of water, color, sugar, alcohol,
silence and
the onset of the first noises thereafter
the break between nothing and something… and everything
shards of plastic from long-accumulated pink and blue dreams
that crush, so easily, in the hands of someone
like you

suitcases and bookshelves and today and tomorrow
once i actually asked you to explain it
and you quoted and pontificated and embellished, but never said anything.

we never did get on the same page
entire books we read, eating ravenously at the smart words, using them, trying them
on each other, so proud and so accomplished,
but i was on 433 while you were on 289,
and when i was on 674, you were diving through 956,7,8… no end in sight.
when we started, it was so close, i’d be on 2 with you on 3,
i was at 30 and you at 29,
such a rush of similarity, of joining and catching and togetherness,

so we scream and we shout,
loudly erasing the emotions that we spent the whole day building,
the good, the great, the sweet, the amazing,
and replacing them with bitterminorthreatening things we will regret tomorrow
what else will we regret tomorrow?
on tuesday, what will we like about each other?
will we think about the forty five minutes of sublime midmorning unity,
or the sixty seconds of anxious, unrelenting hostility that followed it?

voices in harmony and slightly off-pitch,
almost worse than silence
tender bites at pale fingertips, rushing, touching, finishing a white owl day
snowy and opalescent, in a black lacquer
like covering a sunrise with the curtains

just to be here – with my chest rising and falling,
it’s more than i deserve
without an identity, something to believe in, a purpose and a fight,
and the strength to fight it
but fitfully, i stay back
and with fists, i hit couch cushions and useless foamy pillows
their delicate softness is infuriating
and the world’s sharp hurt is making my lips red from biting,
my throat raw from crying,
as the broken time, the way you look at me as i stand on the roof’s edge,
it stings in those open cuts, it peppers my stripped skin, burning, giving
me something to feel more deeply than just the usual disappointment.
locked doors and pianos with sticky keys
pinned wings
with that big fat paisley sunset sky beckoning,
curling color at me, calling with coral and cappuccino light
that i can’t quite reach from
way
down
here
on the balcony, the highest i can get
in this useless far-from-temple body

the time just stretches on and out and i usually sit here, thinking that i should be standing,
running, jumping, or at least sleeping
and when i’m sleeping, i feel guilty – i should be weaving, writing, screaming, singing,
learning to live fully
lightly letting the days flood in

and sinking, sinking, in a strait of
salty
sanity.
i’ve been unwinding myself all this time, and,
the end of the twine finally found, the empty spool is so stark and so
beige.
here i had imagined i might find some psychedelic peach-orange-purple center
stirred with champagne to make a foamy fizz
but i can’t really say i’m surprised to find a simple piece of cardboard, unshapely and ordinary.
mistakes can keep me from trying things more than once
and people can keep me from ever trying them to begin with
but only i can ask myself to do it again

big bold letters, side-by-side, you and me, everyone knows
today’s the day the letters merge and collide melt and ellide

a soothing sterling memory,
a piece of white cake

why won’t those explosions leave their little blasted holes ready for
me to fill,
with wind and the ripples of evening and the way the night whips through?
where do the cigarette butts collect, with the stab-wounds of every word you’ve ever said to me?
why can’t you just go, and let me forget you?
come on, no, honestly, why can’t you just fucking stay?  and why can’t you be the person who empties me of these thoughts?
is it because i’m not a tall glass of bourbon?
i’m a low-ball with cheap whiskey and no ice.
born in a hot distillery, lived my life in the back of a cabinet, and now being sipped while you make a sour face and regret it all.