2004-07-27 - 3:39 p.m.
Understanding Caroline
It’s late and I didn't call.
To be miles and miles (away) and this is all I get?
Through superstition
and bloody cement
Where kids stand chain smoking on corners
and couples make love
under cloud cover in the cemetery...
...This is my back pressed against the bathroom sink. This is you
smashing
my reflection into shards
(Right over my shoulder).
So let me say this about that.
Dear ---,
I'm trying to forget. I'm trying to forget that she called you a slut and the smile you gave me in the -00 hallway. I'm trying to forget the paintings you did and when you apologized.
And I hope things change. I hope that you don't watch me anymore and I won't have to see you smile. I hope you are a slut after all and I can just forget all this by August --.
In case you weren't wondering about me; start, ----.
The sky opened up as she traced circles
around her lips.
"Rain was always my favorite part of the storm"
she said.
You were pushed down and broken
(on the floor)
And every time I passed you your wrists
looked more
bruised
than before.
Dear ------,
Just let me say that you never returned my calls. You bowed out before we even got started. Don't bother trying to explain. You never had a problem lying to us though, did you? You never needed to apologize. After all the things you said about quiet kids finishing last I expected you to never turn into the opposing side. (You know who I mean.) To what I owe this misfortune, ----.
Ill tangled voices resembled fireflies against the night sky.
(Or so it seems.)
And it seems that few and far
between
pathetic excuses
have become our daily conversations.
Our possessions have been taken
and the eyelashes we
left laying
on hotel pillows are brushed aside.
Dear --- and ------,
Thanks for coming over and keeping me company last night. It means a lot to me that we can all talk about politics and what we feared when we were little. When you turned out the lights ------, so that there was a dim glow and three bodies laying on the floor we may as well have been infinite. Always up for anything, ----.
