and I don’t mean simply that she’ll sit on top and ask for
more than you think you can give, although she’ll do that.
And you will thrust harder and go longer with her than any
somebody should: when you have to work in the morning,
when the neighbors might wonder, when wives and
husbands are waiting for wayward spouses to come home.
Sweating this much for this many days in a row can’t be
healthy, you will think, and you will ask, where is a glass
of unsalted water when I need it? Where is the person I
used to be, and why is the mirror shaking when the piggy
bank is standing still on the dresser? If this isn’t an
earthquake then what kind of freak beauty is it, exactly?
And though you will be more thirsty than Noah was before
the flood, you’ll find you’ve forgotten things you once
needed: how to hold on, for example, and how to swallow.
Elaina M. Ellis, Change Is a Demanding Lover
When you have left me
the sky drains of color
like the skin
of a tightening fist.
The sun commences
its gold prowl
batting at tinsel streamers
on the electric fan.
Crouching I hide
in the coolness I stole
from the brass rods
of your bed.
I’m preparing myself for an extended period of loneliness
That will begin very soon I think
I’ve illegally downloaded two new depressing songs
I’ve placed a copy of Good Morning, Midnight under my pillow for easy reference
I’ve printed out the tablature for every Morrissey song I know so I can sing them to myself
Alone in my room
Just a few things are needed really
To make me calm
While I figure out a simple, clean, and effective way to kill myself,
With minimal stress for the person who has to find and dispose of my body
But I’ll probably never think of a way
Because I’ll probably never kill myself
I’ll just lie in my bed suffocating myself with my pillows
While listening to the four songs you said were your favorite
And maybe burn myself a little with the iron
On special occasions
And the next time I’m in a subway station,
I’ll stand a little further on the yellow line
Or maybe the next time I’m at your apartment
I’ll try a little harder
The night does not wish to come
so that you cannot come
and I cannot go.
But I will go,
though a scorpion sun should eat my temple.
But you will come
with your tongue burned by the salt rain.
The day does not wish to come
so that you cannot come
and I cannot go.
But I will go
yielding to the toads my chewed carnation.
But you will come
through the muddy sewers of darkness.
Neither night nor day wishes to come
so that I may die for you
and you die for me.
Federico García Lorca, Gacela of Desperate Love, trans. W. S. Merwin
(via yesyes)
We don’t have a past so much
as a bunch of electricity and liquor, power
never put to good use.