Well. Altitude's open til 10.

I've worn purple eye shadow since you left.
Can't bring myself to put on anything else.

Wish you could have seen me tonight.
Love,
Sunnie.

09/10/2011 But We Won't.

"We insist we'll be alright. These wounds will heal

themselves with time. All we have to do is 

stick it through a few more months

and we'll be fine....

So Let Go."

Earlobes

     At the time I was thinking about his earlobes. That’s what I really miss, his god damn earlobes.  And I actually caught myself fingering the hem of my dress, like I used to do his ears. Especially late at night when he’d lay on his side facing me, even though he always complained about how uncomfortable it was for him to lie like that. And I’d try to compensate for his posture by stroking the bottoms of his ears. As if the gesture gave him some kind of complacency. When really, the pinch and release of malleable tissue caught in my fingertips, soothed the compulsion to repeat over and over, God I love you, Christ I love you, Abel I love you... I was thinking about how selfish that is. How greedy I am for that boy’s earlobes.

               

     I was thinking about this while I braced myself against the window pane outside the bar; one hand on thick glass, the other in the fabric of my dress. Pan out. On the inside a boy leaned against the same window, one hand on a full glass the other in the pocket of his jeans. We both closed our eyes and knocked our heads back. Crowns juxtaposed. Cue the violins.

                

     It wasn’t alcohol teasing blood cells, or thick curling smoke unfolding from my lungs and throat; and it wasn’t the boys who approached me with lines they had been reciting on a cerebral broken record. It was this nocturnal cologne that I found pervading the streets and bars; a combination of cigarette smoke, brick wall, and September. It was this semblance of drunken youth and perfect temperature that constructed an atmosphere that was uniquely heartwreckage. I was drunk on the absence of Abel. I had intoxicated myself with phantoms of us, strolling along the same sidewalk I stood on.  I stumbled inside, worried I’d black out if I kept watching us holding hands, crossing the bridge over the trains, and daring each other to jump.

                

     Wasted on melancholy, I entered the bar.  Bypassed costumed stand-ins, and took space near the boy who let the window support his weight, like he had given up on standing. I sat on a marooned barstool because I couldn’t quite make it all the way to the actual bar. I was too inebriated from the silent films playing out on the sidewalk. I just needed to sit down, catch some poise, cross my pins, and crave.

                

     I guess that’s what initiated the interaction, between me and this boy who hated standing. He lifted his glass and asked for the story of me. I thought about apologizing, the “me” he was inquiring for, didn’t live here anymore. She abandoned this place and left a husk in a black dress. But he was cute, tall, and I was curious as to why he needed the crutch.

               

     Hushhh fell over the bar, all the extras turned their torsos towards our tack. I told him every boy I know is Icarus, and you can see where I’ve been because there’s always a mess of feathers and wax. Told him how I’m the most confident girl in the world (cut to scene with my fingers at the back of my throat, coughing up sick and Diet Coke) I’m the happiest girl in the world (cut to this morning where breakfast consists of coffee and anti-depressants) and unlike all the other women you’ll meet, I’m not jaded and spoiled for fervor (the entire time I had been staring at his earlobes).

                

     He nodded and said “You’re the reason we’re all here. Morose boys who crawl into pubs and wait for sunshine gift wrapped in a cocktail dress. Wait for girls starved for affection, who may share a few similar interests. Boys waiting at the bar with an extra twenty bucks in their pockets, hoping they can get you liquored up enough to tug at your ribbons. Not that I’m any different, tell you the truth, you remind me of Christmas. I wouldn’t mind unlocking the buttons, twisting open your bra, and discovering the supple trinkets you’ve got packaged. But you just so happen to have caught me on the same night my girlfriend left me. And I’m all too aware that these men are just sick with sun poisoning. They think the cure’s in between your breasts, that you’ve got an antidote hidden in some wet cavity. But the morning after you’ll rise from their beds, run off with their button up shirts, and leave nothing but arduous sunburn.”

                

     He pressed himself harder into the window frame. I twisted the cotton of my dress so hard I thought of ripping cartilage. It was then I felt my diaphragm build and collapse from laughing [applaud. applaud. applaud.] I said “And tell me kid, did she leave your knees so weak you can’t stand up? That you need to use this window as an auxiliary? Her intimacy, so crude in its absence that the floor seems to tip while you walk from one side of the bar to the other? When she left you, did she avoid eye contact, and with a sick audacity refer to you using a pet name like a tactless joke? Because Abel did, and I had to tell him to use my real name while he broke up with me. No, I’m not the reason all these boys are here. I’m not starved for affection, but rather bandages and balm. If you were to liberate my dress from me, you’d find that same sore red skin. But the difference is, I’m not going caress a window pane all night and bitch about it.”

                

     He shook his head “no” and replied “It’s not that I can’t stand. Although I won’t lie to you, I find stability in prescribed SSRI’s and serenity caught between the glass and tap. Genetically the anti-superman, yes I got a crutch. But it’s not this window.  I’m just trying to keep it shut, because out on that sidewalk I keep seeing ghosts that refuse to leave me alone.”

                

I asked “What’s you’re script?”

                

“Wellbutrin 300mg”

                

“So I guess we do share a few similar interests.”

Thanks for the ride home.

We have a lot in common.

All the fucked up shit
you never talk about
on a first date,
that's how we relate.

Let's go home and lick each other's egos all better.

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

It's getting better every day.

I needed a business card.

Oh yes.

Through Neptune

This started, this descent from skyscraping cliffs that laughed at us like bullies; the plunge that romanced my viscera into my throat; my bleeding feet kicking violently, anticipating the bleak concrete ocean that rioted against the black rocks below covered in green moss tweed. This leap from stony edifices into sea salt vapor, fingers laced with your fingers, screams raveled with your poetry recital. This story of love and two self-catapulting kids, started December 17th of last year. 

And it ended nine months later, on a bench in between brick buildings. Where I fell to the sidewalk and crawled up between your legs; wanting to claw through your jeans; wanting to take some skin under my fingernails as a souvenir. Where you just stared off in any direction that wasn't me. And my throat just ached, alveoli seduced by flux. I was taken under the boardwalk current and the last thing I saw was you looking off saying "Can we please go now?"

Undertow, looking up I saw you walk off with a girl who wouldn't stop crying. You offered to give her a ride home and that was the last time I saw either of you.

My body caved through Neptune's body. I bypassed nights we told the world to stop so we could have each other in my mother's car. And I saw myself hand you a mixed CD that I had spent 5 hours working on, and the way you kissed me like no one else was looking, like no one else mattered. I watched your fingers thread through my gloved hands. I saw us sitting on your bed while my car ran outside for two hours because neither of us could stop talking. 

And then I watched while I carried you to your car from the Ranger because you had gotten too drunk to walk. Then the night when I had too much to drink and you got so furious with me you left me in your bed alone. When you were sober and we'd lock arms in stroll and you'd pull me back when I went ahead of you. Nights we went out to dinner and you'd explain to me why my jokes didn't make sense, or times you'd flat out tell me "That wasn't funny. Nothing about that is funny." 

Times you got upset and just left me at that bar when you were supposed to be my ride. A thousand incidences I did something that was all my own and you'd peer over and mention how unimpressed you were. How you would get annoyed with me when I couldn't be the life of the party, how you scolded me when I found conversation with people outside your social web of friends. I watched you walk me around a brick building and set me down on this bench, to tell me you couldn't keep doing this.

I woke up, coughing up salt water. Dug my ripped up feet into the sand. And for the first time since we leaped, I felt the Sun.

The Lack Of

It's been so long.

Pull up your bar stool, let me tell you the story of a girl and boy who were in love.

Let me tell you the story of how she lost herself in him,
his ego,
his status,
his constant attempt at fixing her,
and how much it pained him (or didn't, can't really speak for the kid)

How he left her
due to issues that were out of or in her control depending on which
party
you were speaking with.

Let me tell you how
she felt.
Let me tell you how
she didn't feel
      anything, towards the end of it.

And tried to make up for that lack of elation
in constant sobbing and
days spent in bed.
-Right up until the minute he said
"I just can't do this any longer"

Let me show you how she salvaged how gorgeous she really is.
Tonight, I'm going to show you
exactly
what euphoria feels like.

Tonight I'm going to propel
the kind pining you've only
read in
poetry.

Why?
because I'm fucking good at it.

I Just Need To Get Some Sleep.

Pinpoint on the horizon. If I can't sleep in this apartment, if I can't sleep in this town, then I'll take any undiscovered dirt road to get to that place that isn't here. Where is my quoin of slumber if it isn't in his basement? If it isn't in the nook of his neck and ribs? And so, I grab my camera, deodorant, and that piggy bank I bought for him the day before he left me.

There's this tapping. A lepidoptera metronome. Moths are aimlessly diving into my windshield. Suicide bombers with dusted wings, I can relate. A glow from underneath the seat made by my phone that keeps telling me I'm never really alone. And his voice narrating the car scene that says "They're all just trying to get into her jeans".

Winding through aphotic composition and yellow paint, wielding the steering wheel over chaffed paths, where doleful women have worn through the crust and cement. How many daughters am I following? How many marred lovers have cast off and sailed through this chop sea of blizzard posts and highway? How many made their way back home; and how many walked plank?

An hour later I pull over and toss my body into dirt and red pine needles. Load my lungs with smoke and just stare up into the ink and salt. Lose myself in the cold and cricket chorus. Contrive myself in the thought that I could expire here. I could be vital here. And I can inhale, feel how tangible I haven't been lately, exhale, feel the universe implode and explode simultaneously. And somehow, despite the cosmic blight, I am serenaded into the deep unconsciousness that I've been coveting.

Morning.  I wake up in the debris of outer space. I could scream for other survivors but they'd probably just eat too loudly, walk too slowly, and bitch about their jobs back home. No, I'm content with being the only thing alive. I raise my arms into the blue and try to shake some dust from my wings. That's when my nostrils ache of "home"sick. The deodorant I grabbed...totally his.

The nice thing about being broken up with is that you were probably pretty satisfied with the relationship right up until the very last second. For you, it was fun the entire time.
If you're leaving someone, you've most likely been mourning them for awhile.

I had a lot of fun.
I just feel like I've been hit by a train.

At least we weren't born in North Korea.