dreams and dreams and dreams

I dreamt about you again last night. It is only the second time since it's happened. It's weird. I thought I'd dream about you all the time, try to bring you back. That's usually what happens when I feel like my heart is breaking. I don't really want to know why it's different this time. This time I saw you at church. People were trying to talk to me and I just kept telling them to shut up because all I wanted to do was drink in your face to make sure you were real. But I was scared. I knew it couldn't last. But still the only thing in my mind for a few moments was your face. And I could see it clearly.

Remember how we first saw each other after our time apart? We both went to mass at Resurrection (CAAA-RISSS!) and we hugged but since mass was starting all we could do was smile like fools. I remember I couldn't stop my feet from moving. I remember the light especially. Will we get that again? But better this time? Please say yes.

I listened to the recordings by the campfire tonight for the first time in months. Your voice was so sweet it was painful. It was at once so beautiful and familiar, but then to know that I will never know it again was the worst agony.

I would give anything, absolutely anything, for one more conversation with you.

My love, my love.

come back, come back my little piece of mind

Today I am mad at you again. Did you have to make your point? You were always so goddamn stubborn. I said you'd fight to the death. Today I was reading Everything is Illuminated. The last chapter I read reminds me of how LitTOC made me feel. I was always the poster child, to you, your crowned goddess, to everyone, to myself. "Love makes it all worth it". It's so simple, so bubbly, I can't even repeat it in my own head without it sounding comically trite and worn. Chris even made those cartoons. Looking back now, all I see is a caricature myself. I don't know anymore. Who or what do I have left to show for it? What was that based on? Some fucked up, emotionally manipulated subservience to a person disguised as an ideal. An ideal, I thought, wouldn't hurt you. But when you slap that ideal like a post-it note to someone's forehead, give it life, give it dreams, give it fears, it's all a minefield. The unconditional forgiveness that drove me into the ground. You were the last good thing left.
In the grass at the airport, I wish I could remember if you were crying. I was blinded by my own fears, my own tears, so goddamn selfish. If you didn't, I know it was the closest you ever got(besides that time in Nashua, when I asked of you the impossible, but this time it was pure agony, no anger, less fear). Why was it worth it? I looked over my shoulder (you crashed into the ground) without regret this time. At least we had the chance, I said. The day she popped your cherry and I laughed, did that break your heart? I'm sorry I told. You'd think if I could know anything, I could at least know myself. I can't even remember what my question is anymore.
I say on that sponge-scrubber green floor and wept over the Truth I found in every bittersweet line of LitTOC. I put my post-its there to tell you how it couldn't be. I hate the way your eyes implored me. Not our usual quiet resignation. I should have known. If you hadn't asked, I might have said yes. Is that wrong? I don't know why I couldn't love you. You faced your greatest fear for me, I now it has become mine. Because I lost you. I lose. You win. Should I have known that there was so much on the table?
We stayed up until 4AM, trying not to yell. Biting that denim comforter to abate my absolute frustration. Like a baby, like now, all I can do is stomp my feet and pound my fists to make you, to make them, understand. "I don't want to love because the day you lose the one you love seems unbearable, to impossible to handle.""But it's worth it! Don't you fucking trust me?" This goddamn sense of guilt. If I had gone, you would be black, immobile, undead. I wish we could talk it out. Our final folly:, we were to each a compass, a mirror, it was always you or me we came to when we had questions of the marrow of it all; but when you are my philosophy how can we possibly discuss this as secular? It doesn't even matter now because you are gone, gone, gone. Beat it. Repeat it. it still rings empty to my ears. I just can't wring the reality, the truth, out of any of these tears. Blackness would be better than this bitter parade of empty little light boxes displaying the faded, flickering projections of my projected, happy life. It goes on without me.

lima oscar victor echo

My love,

That was hard (I'm glad I can still hear you laughing maniacally). I miss you more than I ever thought it was possible to miss someone. I wish that I could have been there. I am scared for when it is my turn. I know it will break my heart. Thank you for leaving me Gabe and Stogie, they've helped me so much. I don't know what I'd do without them. Please let your mom know that you're with her. She's really struggling. She made the most beautiful quilts for Aaron and Brandon out of your shirts. They were so beautiful and so you that they made me cry. She has told me that she is going to make me one out of your t-shirts. I can think of nothing more fitting :) Maybe it will even have some penguins on it. And I will make sure to call each of them by name. I know there's not much I can tell you that you don't already know because I feel you with me and I keep you right here next to my heart. On my worst days, I feel robbed of the most incredible friendship I've ever had, one that I knew I would have for the rest of my life, a space that now feels so empty, but on my best days I am so grateful that I got to spend as much time with you as I did, that you were so impossible to forget, and that you so thoroughly shaped me into the person I am today that you can never really leave me. I miss you like MC Hammer misses the high life.

lima oscar victor echo, your crowned goddess,
Megan

maybe in Paraguay they can find you

untitled

unwind my hand, rewind my days
oh clear the cobwebs, clear the daze

a cold white room all cushioned white
my mind feels trapped; i strain, i fight

not cracks at all i strike the pane
futile attempts-again!again!

the four blank walls give me no heed
no way is out-to you i need

from there to here how i am lost
you're gone, you're gone- come numbing frost.

Hallelujah

Thinking outrageously I write in cursive
I hide in my bed with the lights on the floor
Wearing three layers of coats and leg warmers
I see my own breath on the face of the door

Oh I am not quite sleeping
Oh I am fast in bed
There on the wall in the bedroom creeping
I see a wasp with her wings outstretched

North of Savanna we swim in the palisades
I come out wearing my brother's red hat
There on his shoulder my best friend is bit seven times
He runs washing his face in his hands

Oh how I meant to tease him
Oh how I meant no harm
Touching his back with my hand I kiss him
I see the wasp on the length of my arm

Oh great sights upon this state! Hallelu-
Wonders bright, and rivers, lake. Hallelu-
Trail of Tears and Horseshoe Lake. Hallelu-
trusting things beyond mistake. Hallelu-

We were in love. We were in love.
Palisades! Palisades! Palisades
I can wait. I can wait.

Lamb of God, we sound the horn.
Hallelujah!
To us your ghost is born.
Hallelu-

I can't explain the state that I'm in
The state of my heart, he was my best friend
Into the car, from the back seat
Oh admiration in falling asleep
All of my powers, day after day
I can tell you, we swaggered and swayed
Deep in the tower, the prairies below
I can tell you, but the telling gets old
Terrible sting and terrible storm
I can tell you the day we were born
My friend is gone, he ran away
I can tell you, I love him each day
Though we have sparred, wrestled and raged
I can tell you I love him each day
Terrible sting, terrible storm
I can tell you...

an oreo cake, an apron

a roomfull of laughter
the lightest of hearts
a brush on the shoulder
you’re home ‘round these parts

and now i feel empty and
rootless apart
i don’t know where’s home
there’s nowhere to start

don’t know how to find you
now that you’ve gone
can’t get you back again
so safe in your arms

you’d hold me tight
when i’d shiver and shake
and now i am seizing
you’re lying in wake

i don’t know where you’ve gone
thought you were right here
thought i’d have you forever
when i was too weak to steer

the laughs from your belly
the joy from your soul
i can’t know it again
i will never be whole.