Friday, February 7, 2014

Poem from 8/2004

About deciding to get clean



I remember the sickness of this bedroom.

I remember forfeiting to the fun-house mirrors of my mind.

I remember screeching halts that came and never went.

I remember straining to hold and the muscles turning white.

I remember being petrified to make a sound.

I remember hearing footsteps crush the hallway,
and the moment I realized it was the beat of my own heart.

I remember listening to music for falling off cliffs.

I remember pulling threads from my eyelids like tricks from a tophat.

I remember the poison never leaving my lips.

Remember sucking my own marrow dry

Remember lending every last possibility to god, begging, "Please let that not be the sun rising."

I remember shrapnel going for a ride in my spine.

I remember the heat at night and street lamps pressing themselves into the sky.

I remember being impressed with life as much as the mess.

Remember white chunks of earth reaching upward from the ground.

I remember gymnastic tricks of light, and thanking the universe for its gifts.

I remember breathing in the sweat and soot of forgotten things,
and never learning to ask for something better.

I remember a confused cornucopia of desires reaching out their tendrils in the dark.

I remember my permission lingering somewhere close to where I
might have left it.

I remember scratching every gift I ever unwrapped.

I remember being fascinated.

I remember the echo of imagination through empty space.

I remember the moment I understood that innocence is only remarkable to
those who've lost it.

I remember my memories never finding peace.

I remember being calmed by what I could not explain.

I remember melting pixels into liquid.
I remember them hitting the veins.

I remember confusing abuse with freedom,
and shrinking too small for my own skin.

I remember diastolic earthquakes.

I remember the last time I ever felt satisfied. I remember it being too long ago.

I remember scattering like ash into a sidewalk gutter.

I remember that being the day I knew I'd had enough.

8/31/04



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