(no subject)

[cseresznie.livejournal.com]

Wishbone
Richard Siken


You saved my life he says I owe you everything.
You don’t, I say, you don’t owe me squat, let’s just get going, let’s just get gone, but he’s

relentless,

keeps saying I owe you, says Your shoes are filling with your own damn blood,

you must want something, just tell me, and it’s yours.

But I can’t look at him, can hardly speak,

I took the bullet for all the wrong reasons, I’d just as soon kill you myself, I say.

You keep saying I owe you, I owe… but you say the same thing every time.

Let’s not talk about it, let’s just not talk.

Not because I don’t believe it, not because I want it any different, but I’m always saving

and you’re always owing and I’m tired of asking to settle the debt.

Don’t bother.

You never mean it anyway, not really, and it only makes me that much more ashamed.

There’s only one thing I want, don’t make me say it, just get me bandages, I’m bleeding,

I’m not just making conversation.

There’s smashed glass glittering everywhere like stars. It’s a Western, Henry,

it’s a downright shoot-em-up. We’ve made a graveyard out of the bone white afternoon.

It’s another wrong-man-dies scenario

and we keep doing it, Henry, keep saying until we get it right…

but we always win and we never quit, see, we’ve won again, here we are at the place

where I get to beg for it

where I get to say Please, for just one night, will you lay down next to me, we can leave our

clothes on, we can stay all buttoned up?

or will I say

Roll over and let me fuck you till you puke, Henry, you owe me this much, you can indulge me

this at least, can’t you? but we both know how it goes. I say I want you inside me

and you hold my head underwater, I say I want you inside me

and you split me open with a knife. I’m battling monsters, half-monkey, half-tarantula,

I’m pulling you out of the burning buildings and you say I’ll give you anything.

( + )

Conchitina Cruz - Smile

[losingmywheels.livejournal.com]

Smile

Conchitina Cruz

 

The man who thinks he is God likes to say “I forgive you.” Because they are

obliged to be kind, the nurses ignore him as he raises his right hand to bless

them. While they change the sheets, he forgives the world beyond his window,

the trees, the parked cars, the janitor sweeping the cigarette stubs off the side-

walk. I forgive you. I forgive you. The nurses lead him to bed, then leave. They

cannot stand his eyes, full of pity and condescension.

 

To the doctor, he says nothing. He thinks she is the Virgin Mary, and even God

is in awe of The One Without Sin. She approaches his body with the method of

a mechanic. She listens to his heart, his pulse, his lungs, inspects his ears, checks

his reflexes. In a few minutes, she will be out of this hospital, in her parked car,

off to a date with the man she believes she will marry.

 

When the patient catches her eye, the doctor is somewhere else, in bed, holding

the blanket close to her body as her future husband holds a camera above her.

“Smile,” he says, and she does. The man who thinks he is God returns the smile

of the woman before him, the Virgin Mother, and the room is flooded with the

radiance of the moment, a man and a woman in the middle of a sweet misun-

derstanding.

"Memory" by Conchitina Cruz

[lonelybusiness.livejournal.com]

Memory
--Conchitina Cruz

I can't remember his name
but I recall the way he didn't
forget things easily -- what dress I wore
to class three days ago, phone numbers of rooms
for rent on bulletin boards, the crops
of local regions we're made to memorize
in grade four. I never asked him
if he meant to keep these memories he had
no use for, and by choice or not, if he thought it a burden,
his power to remember
and remember well. After all, it meant too
that he always knew the right formulas to use
in exams, and if he forgot (which he never did),
he had all these other alternatives
in mind. I never did bother to wonder
if it was this same sharp memory that made
him know his losses well, from his missing pen
down to the girlfriend who left him, whom he spoke of
in few words but mentioned often.

As for me, I just long for the day when I need
not bluff my way out of a conversation
with -- what's his name? -- an acquaintance
from college, perhaps, or a regular
in my favorite restaurant. If there's one thing
I'm bound never to forget, it's how it feels
to wonder, once I'm out of the house,
if I was able to turn all the lights off, or worry
that I didn't unplug the iron. I've said hello
to actors down the street without being sure
who they are, certain only that their faces
seem familiar. It doesn't even dawn on me
until much later that I'm acquainted
with their nonexistent selves, their characters
in movies I've seen, the titles of which,
well, I can't seem to remember.

I think of the one who sat next
to me in Physics class, the one I envied so,
and I realize I might not even recognize
him if we see each other
now. I wonder who, between us,
is luckier: is it he, with all his recollections
and no way out
of his memory, or is it me, with my guilt
as I gaze at the past,
growing anonymous behind me?