I saw three babies today, three babies in a row. Maybe they were born a few months ago because they were tiny. A woman was pushing them in a stroller built for three babies. They all looked the same and made the same noises. The one with the blue shirt pointed at me and I pointed back. Hey baby, I said. Hey little baby. I think I must have said it too loud because it started to cry. One of the other babies started crying too and it sounded the same as the first baby. They all made the same noises. I wanted to see them better so I got closer but they didn’t look good so close up. I had to walk fast to catch up with the lady pushing the stroller. It’s okay, she said. I think she was talking to the babies. But I didn’t like the way the babies looked up close and I felt almost like I was going to cry. There was snot on their faces and their cheeks were red. It’s okay, it’s okay, the lady kept saying. I pretended she was talking to me. But I’m pretty sure she was talking to the babies. They looked like little monsters. All of a sudden I wished there weren’t any babies at all. All the snot and all that. Molly used to say she would have a baby if she could borrow someone else’s body to carry it. But they looked like little monsters to me, all three of them making the same noises and I wouldn’t carry one even if I had someone else’s body.

When my mom’s hands were still strong enough to hold the camera she used to take pictures of me and Molly like we were leaving the next day. She used to say just sit still so I can take the pictures. You want to be good for Mommy don’t you? Don’t you love Mommy? I don’t know about Molly but I didn’t want to because I don’t care about being good and I don’t care if she loved me or not. Loving somebody never got anybody anywhere. But sometimes I sat still and it was okay. The old lady who rented one of our rooms used to come over every afternoon and sit and talk with my mom. Mom would ask her oh, hello, how are you this afternoon? And she would say oh, I’m happy to be here, Terry. Actually I’m happy to be anywhere. And she would start laughing but it sounded like coughing. I don’t know why that was supposed to be funny but I guess it was because she was so old. I asked mom if being old always had to be sad. She said you’re too young to worry about that. Promise me you won’t worry about that. Sit still for the camera. I hated that old lady for being sad and old and I hated mom for making us sit still for the camera and asking us if we loved her. That question always made me sad. Actually when Molly started going out with boys she’d ask them that, too. Don’t you love me? That seems like a sad question to me. But Molly liked to ask questions a lot and when we had to go to the doctors she’d be the one asking questions. And that seemed sad too somehow. Mom used to have a pillow that said love is all you need. It was stitched in red and white letters and there was a heart stitched onto it. I used to put my head on it when I slept on the couch and mom would always say that pillow is for looking, not for sleeping.

When Molly got an apartment that was far away from our house with mom and the old lady, she put up three paintings. One of them was a hill with a river. The second one was ugly and looked like the sun melting. The third one was my favorite because it showed a lady looking in the mirror. She was fixing her hair and looking into the mirror. I think Molly liked it because it looked like her. She put it above her bed. I wish I could have taken it because I would like to hang it up where people could see it, not just in a bed. That’s a bad place to put a painting if you ask me.

Mom’s hands stopped working when I was thirteen. And I remember that because she used to say you’re thirteen, you’re bad luck. Look, my hands won’t work anymore. I always felt bad and I used to hold them and try to fix them. I thought when I turn fourteen I won’t break her hands anymore. Molly brought a boy over once who said hey little man, you’re tall for thirteen. You should play basketball. But I couldn’t do that because I would feel bad about using my hands when I’d broken mom’s hands. Maybe if mom’s hands worked well enough to play basketball I wouldn’t feel bad about it. But that boy was pretty nice to me and he always said hey little man, you should come see Molly more often. But I had things to fix at the house. Mom’s hands felt rough like carpet when I held them.

Molly used to get sad and sometimes cry and say that it was all her fault and that she had hurt me and that she was sorry. But I said it wasn't her fault and told her please not to feel bad. She looked at me with a really bad look on her face and she'd say oh little Neil, you're never going to be the same again ever because of me. She would only talk like that at night when she didn't have any boys over and nobody was calling and she was waiting for the water to boil for dinner or something like that. So not always. She would always look at that painting of the sun melting and rub her eyes with paper towels. She'd say god now I messed up my makeup. I guess I just mess everything up she always said. I told her she didn't and she would say oh god Neil. She'd get up and make sure the water wasn't boiling yet. Thursdays she made spaghetti and it took forever for the water to boil. I said there's nothing wrong with me so you didn't do anything wrong. She'd say Neil, there is too something wrong with you. You think slower because of me. Maybe someday you'll think about that. I used to wish that boy would come over who called me little man because she didn't cry when he was around. Maybe he could live there with her and she wouldn't talk like that ever.

Molly used to know a boy who liked sailing and we lived in a place with no water so he would take her on long drives until they got to a lake. I went with them most of the time. I was scared of the water because it was big and didn't look like it stopped anywhere. So the boy would let me sit in the car. The car was always pointing away from the water so I usually just slept. When I turned around I could see the boat going through the water but I would rather have just slept anyway. I like being asleep in cars better than being awake in cars because I get scared in cars most of the time. Molly said oh that's because you were in a car when you hurt your head, of course you'll be scared. But being scared of things never got anybody anywhere so I tried not to get scared. But it's hard to tell yourself not to be scared because you'll always be scared anyway. I would wake up when they opened the car doors and they would laugh and smelled like the lake. Oh boy that was a good one, Molly would say. That was fun huh? She didn't ask me if it was fun because sleeping in the car wasn't very fun. She'd turn around and look at me laughing and say oh Neil, wake up sleepyhead. Mom used to call us sleepyheads and usually she was laughing too. It's funny how mom and Molly always said a lot of the same things.

When Mom's hands broke because I was thirteen she started washing them all the time. She used to buy boxes of soap at the store so big that I had to help her carry them. Sometimes the bars of soap were green, but that was only when she couldn't get the orange ones which were her favorites. She said Molly and Neil, now you two don't use the orange bars because those are Mommy's bars. Molly said mom you're being weird again. Mom didn't talk to Molly very much and got mad at her a lot. I guess that made sense because mom's hands were broken so of course she wasn't going to be normal. I don't think Molly would be normal if that happened to her.

Sometimes Molly would start crying when we weren't at her apartment and it always made me feel bad. She started crying once while we talked to the doctor and she kept saying I am cursed. I didn't know why she would feel cursed because I think being cursed would be a lot scarier than just being at the doctor. Molly used to say things like that a lot. I think cursed was her favorite word. She used to look at that painting above her bed and say yeah I know how you feel.

i do understand that only those without guilt are allowed to be brokenhearted, but there is a lacquer of memories over every piece of furniture in this fucking apartment and there is a very specific part of the lease that absolutely forbids me from scraping it away. we absorb the shock.

appropriately, our goldfish died yesterday

i guess it was less of a mystery before we systematically destroyed our history, before driving past your house was an accidental subconscious activity, before the sentences i threw together got way ahead of me, and before i knew it my imaginings fermented into memories and i couldn't separate fiction from reality. something is going to change. i have felt it brewing in some unidentifiable pit of my stomach. i have felt it filling me entirely, the point of no return, and i imagine myself on my hands and knees with a chisel and a cigarette lighter, carving a path through the rubicon. the wind was blowing exactly 7 miles per hour. you could feel it in the air: something terrible was going to happen. the inevitable delayed, the truth buried, the reality ignored. your skeletons hid in the same closet as mine. the bones became indistinguishable from one another. the only way i can tell is that your bones are significantly more slender than mine. much more able to withstand what was coming.

this is written in code, as letters always are, because they are intended for one and not for many.

one girl is, of course, sitting at a corner booth, across from someone whose gender is unclear. their four hands are a clenched and uncomfortable lump on the table; you could say that their body parts (individually) are completely indiscernible. i said she vaguely resembled a trash-compacted meg ryan, but my memory stubbornly insists that she is cindy laporte, my kindergarten teacher. i lost a game of checkers that night, so i have a red (or black?) checker in my mouth and i am rolling it around with my tongue, feeling the tiny ridges. i can overhear the story she is telling. a series of characters. a greatest-hits version of her past. the setting is exaggerated. the plot is puerile. none of it is true. her mother, she says, is a pharmacist. i find this completely unbelievable, as i can tell when she is lying. she starts doing things quickly. the tone of her voice changes. she laughs nervously. my mother used to tell me, "i can tell when you're lying because you smile." she was completely wrong. i smiled when i was telling the truth.

the couple is arguing outside the restaurant now. she had her food tucked delicately into a styrofoam to-go box, but now it's sideways on the pavement with its marinara guts making a little river from the sidewalk to the gutter. the sick flourescent lights shimmer on their skin. i can see now that the antagonist is male. i feel nothing but pity.

she shoved his coat back into his arms, shoved him backwards just a little, just enough to almost make him lose his footing, just enough to shock him, shake him up a little bit, and spit "i hate you, you fucking asshole, don't go away you fucking asshole"

in the middle of 15th street a large dog met an untimely end. a black lab. around midnight, cars furiously swerved to avoid it. the first time we drove past, it rested on its side, peacefully, eyes closed, limbs crossed. al dente. the second time, five, four, three, two, one, happy new year, we drove past again, and someone had run over its body. insult to injury. its mouth was stretched open in a desperate, unending yelp, teeth flashing in the glow of headlights, eyes open and looking upward, nickel-sized orbs reflecting xenon and halogen, presumably pleading for an explanation of sorts that would never come, presumably for an escape from the screaming of rubber against asphalt, the scrutiny of eyes and that look of horror and fascination. i imagined for a moment that the dog was conscious, watching, completley devoid of control, praying for the mercy of a passing car. when i was driving last year, i saw the crumpled orange heap of a cat's body in the middle of the road, and i could see its leg twitching. i pulled over, got a blanket from my backseat, and waited for a lapse in traffic. i ran to the middle of the road, wrapped the cat's lukewarm body in the dark blue fleece. it was making an awful sound, a gutteral kind of eeeeeeeeoooooooooowwwww sound. i could feel it panting heavily. its body convulsed and i could feel the warmth of blood seeping through the blanket from its abdomen. i felt for its neck. mercy. mercy. mercy. mercy. with a swift jerk i twisted and heard the bones crack, felt its body stop twitching. i left the blanket there and give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses and, two days later, the memorial was gone. not even a grease spot was left on the asphalt. may someone grant me the same favor some day, i thought, may someone mutter mercy mercy mercy mercy.

bodies and dim lighting in a pseudo-artsy soco apartment. i couldn't get the image of the dog's gaping jaw out of my mind, its tongue hopelessly draping its bottom teeth. a year later and i could still feel that cat's blood on my hands. we compare clothing. we think only of ourselves and eachother. the lo-fi rattle of rock music shakes the paintings on the wall. we would feel mercy if we weren't so obsessed with ourselves. i make the rounds: it's so nice to meet you, oh, yes, and so-and-so told me such-and-such about you

adoring public,

she didn't believe that i actually saw him until i described his appearance perfectly, his khaki shirt, black breeches and patent leather evening shoes. i described the hideous crushed red velvet curtains, the blue flourescent light pooling on the shiny surfaces of the tables, cigarette smoke curling slowly into light fixtures, condensation from beer bottles running in tiny rivulets along the grooves of the wood, the vaseline fingerprints smudged haphazardly on the windows, the mildew collecting on the legs of the wooden stools at the bar.

a woman just fell squarely to her knees and begged the black bartender for a phone book. said that in the seventies, she wrote a man's phone number on the back page. just give me the back page then, you motherfucker, she shrieks, the fabric of her dress collecting at her knees. just the back page, then. i can remember all but four digits of that phone number.

ma'am, i just can't do that, he said, scratching the back of his neck, refilling the toothpick dispenser, slinging a hand towel over his shoulder. i just can't do that. besides, we have --

you motherfucker.

-- we have a new phone book now --

you stupid motherfucker. just one page.

-- isn't even the same phone book --

i only need four digits.

-- it won't be there anymore --

another drink, then. get me another scotch. how fucking hard can this be.

-- but you've been cut off.

the general pulled out a chair at my table gently, raising his eyebrows, is this okay, miss, and i nodded, sure, have at it, with a wave of my right hand. he took off his hat and held it firmly to his chest, setting his bottle down on the glass surface of the table with a little tink.

i noticed everything about his face, from the triangular networks of wrinkles around his eyes, the deep crags, the smile lines, the flecks of tortilla chips in his facial hair, the way he scraped the label off his beer bottle with his thumb nail.

"have you ever seen the ancient city of prague?" he breathed into his beer bottle. i laughed and leaned back a little, dabbed my face with a wadded napkin, told him i saw the streets of prague when the citizens looked like zombies. like the bullets without the casing. their skin was dusty and grey, i said, and i remember a woman telling me the suicides had begun. queen mary never looked so dark.

just one page of the fucking phone book.

-- ma'am, i'm going to have to ask you --

just four fucking digits.

the general told me he saw me with a blond girl, her hair almost as white as steamed rice, and assumed she had never seen prague. i showed her, i said, and then she showed herself. but i think she'd already been. he tugged at his chin, squinted at me, smoothed his moustache.

i told him that i loved her to extremes, that there were never warm spots, just hots and colds. he made greasy fingerprints on his napkin and used a toothpick to remove bits of adhesive from underneath his thumbnail.

i asked the general straight out: "what is your intention?" reply: a hand in europe. "do you mean to get austria?" reply: "yes." "do you mean to get czechoslovakia?" reply: "yes."

signed,
the fuck-up, so rich with contempt for every human struggle you've never had to face

four am came too quickly. the mist settled heavy on that half-inch grass and hovered there, pilot to co-pilot, come in, and suddenly it was no longer a lawn, but a still from so-and-so's worst nightmare, where, inevitably, a blonde with big tits would get an axe directly between her shoulder blades, and the sickening sound of her spine cracking would be accompanied only by the almost inaudible rustle of the half-inch grass underfoot. the water crawled by, it hardly moved, i mean you could barely see it ripple, and the brown and yellow of leaves are beginning to clog the grate of the filter like fat clogging an artery.

you, my dear, you of universal understatement, you of selective understanding, you of desperation, you of hunger for attention, you of androgyny, you of mutilation and self-sacrifice for the sake of individuality, you are a tick swollen on the blood of the guilty. and, inevitably, someone will strike a match, wave it in the air until it just glows, it doesn't burn, it just glows steadily, red, orange, and now just yellow, and place the head on the bulge of your abdomen until it bursts, and they will delicately pluck your head from beneath the surface of the skin, crushing your exoskeleton between the silver fingernails of some tweezers. you will be a momentary distraction. a memory. the world will shake you from its surface, regardless of how much you love the melodic sing-song quality of your words.

the chocolate of the dirt underneath your fingernails reminded me that soil, unlike the ground itself, is moist. it is malleable. it can be changed. it can be altered. it can be manipulated. do you have any idea how much life you're pushing with your palms? the detached limbs of insects, the roots of plants that never saw sunlight, the layers of the imprints of the rubber soles of shoes. you are not, by any means, the first. you will not be the last. the moisture in the soil did not come from your tear ducts. the world did not come into existence on the day you were born, nor will it flicker out when you depart. you of cultural elitism, you of intolerance, you of imperialism of the first order, you of hypocrisy: you are not all-knowing. write down in the record books: the first rule of being in a hole is to stop digging.

his hands as
i remember always
spelled particularly
spicy as if perhaps
he bit his nails
and as a final effort
to stop he
slathered his hands
in cayenne pepper

perhaps not a
reasonable conclusion
but at least
a conclusion

and he said i
believe that
they'll speak
of us in history
books one day
you with one hand
on the panic button

and he leaned
over and kissed
me frantically
and said
"get out of the car
get out of the
car and run"

we cannot escape history

with one thumb you
lazily removed a smudge
of something red on
that hotel bathroom
mirror and i assumed
it was stray lipstick
but i never asked and
i never confirmed

and you pretended to
concentrate on it really
hard and you squinted and
you asked "what did you
mean earlier" and i
looked at you sideways
pretended to contemplate
my complexion or
fix a few stray eyebrow
hairs

"what did i say
earlier" i asked twisting
the knob and holding
my fingers under the
cold water of the sink
and with a tissue you
cleaned your thumb

"you said that we
were ruining eachother"
you said wadding up
the tissue "what did
you mean by that"

"i never said that" i
insisted turning the
water off drying
my hand on my pants

"you did" you said
"in between tortilla
chips at the restaurant"
and you pulled a blonde
hair from my shirt
"how am i ruining you"

"well look at us" i
said and grabbed your
chin and forced you
to look in the mirror
to confront that idea
for the first time
look at us
and you jerked your
face away from mine

"you will take
those words to
your grave
little girl"
you said even
though you've only
got five years
on me "do not
be careless with
them"

and you walked away
but you left
four more blonde
hairs on my shirt

the chalk dust fluttered
absently to the carpet
from the eraser in her hand
and she jerked her wrists
all over the board and
said jesus you've got to understand

and the air conditioner
hummed in agreement and
she furiously rubbed her temple
and said the formula can't
possibly be this fucking
hard when the numbers are so simple

but your patterns are so
unstable she muttered
gesturing to the graph
and as much as we'd like
to help you my child
all we can do is laugh

and remember when
living with someone
was a novel concept
because that initial
shock of living
with someone hadn't
worn off yet

and we wouldn't
get pissed about
the inconsequential
and being completely
happy wasn't
simply preferential

and it wasn't
so disgustingly
easy for that
cheek to turn
and it was so
much harder to
teach than it
was to learn

and did i give
away half of my
records for this
did i lose my
favorite feather
pillow for this

and i couldn't
wake up fast
enough to spend
two minutes
out of my day
looking at you
______________________

and i remember
when
you used to laugh
well maybe not
so much anymore but
the way you used
to laugh was loud
and hard

and remember
when we'd dance
yeah and everybody
wanted to be you
and i
yeah and so did i
so did i
what is today
besides the day
that you left me
what is today

here in the
south we sweat
more than usual
but the
toxins
don't go anywhere

"what does that
mean what does it
mean for the
weight to be lifted
completely"

i'll be
forgiven because
this is not the
first time
it's happened
and it's
happened seventeen
thousand times
before
and i will
get the glance
of reprimand
maybe twice
but it only takes
two weeks
usually
only two weeks

but i rolled
down my windows
and watched
moths kill
themselves
in my headlights
for twenty minutes

tw-en-t-y mi-nu-te-s
do you know how long
that feels when you're
idling
i mean
honestly do you
have any idea

and the
groups of
them seem
to get larger
and they sound
like a
cap gun
exploding
against my
windshield

and i don't
even feel it
but they do

and if it
only takes
two sentences
i'll ask you

how much
if you mean
it do
you mean it

because most of
the time i feel
like i'm trailing
you in a police
car in a
hospital zone
like
"would you be
behaving this
well if i wasn't
right behind you"

if life today
were sacred
i'd sell my
soul for one
sweet taste of it
let my tomorrows
leak like dust
into the corners
of a darkened
room while i let
my eyelids fall
upon every memory
of every day
i never lived

and with the
quick adjustment
of a few
strands of hair
and an emphatic
slap on the surface
of the table

"i am not my high
cheekbones
i am not my skin
i am not my father's
credit card
i am not my mother's
credentials
i am not my
leather seats
i am not my
schedule
i am not my
handbag
i am not my
fucking haircut

I AM FREE
I AM FREE

MORE SO THAN
YOU AND YOUR
PARENTS PUT TOGETHER"

and your body was
insistent
and your tone became
desperate
and you furrowed
your eyebrows
and took a look
down at your
blue jeans like
what the fuck
am i doing

"you know what i'm
saying right like
i'm free"

and six nights a
week we convince ourselves
to sleep

and we have torn off
our price tags but
we have saved our receipts

but i say "thank you
norma thank you for
clearing that up
for me"

because part of me
thinks you gestured
grandly
to the condensation
on the bar and said
"to you i give my
consciousness" and
to the rotting
ceiling beams
"and to you i
give my soul"

give it all
you've got
you bastard
inject it
with the fluid
effort you
learned from a
transient mother
who never could
decide which landing
pad to settle on
and turn off
those propellers
the ones that
beheaded so many
birds
right in mid-flight
leaving the
confetti of their
bones to trickle
into the street
onto the sidewalks
into gutters
into dumpsters

"not that
you're innocent"

no i hit a
jackrabbit with my
car once
all i knew of him
was the "thump
thump" under my
tires and the
splotchy
lump of fur in
my rear view
but fuck
i mean at least
i tried to avoid
him
i couldn't have
swerved
no room
i couldn't have
stopped
no room
i couldn't have
forgotten
no room
i couldn't have
returned
failure to render
aid
i mean what's
done is done
the damage did me, man
not the other way
around

and yeah
i think my
eyebrow maintenance
leaves something
to be desired
i just assumed
that's why i
caught you looking
at them

but i've got all
the fucking foundation
i need in the soles
of my shoes
and an unwavering
sneer that leaves
everyone confused

you might
have been able
to surprise me
with this
but you seem to
forget that
i am a woman
and
instinctually
i know
when i
am going to bleed

because
i've heard
you utter
casually
that it's
not worth your while
and i've seen you
avert your eyes
and smile

get ready for the
end 'cause it's coming

and the
streets swell and
the streets turn
white

and yes twenty is waaaaaaay
too young to have ruined your
credit and the broker and the
agent are too old to regret it

and the snowball has started
collecting rocks

and i hope i
was one of the
ones who was smart
enough to reject
my worldly possessions
and we collectively
realize that
nothing was quite
worth it except
maybe memorizing
the lines of our
favorite verses
of whitman

and are you one
of those fucking people
who knows better

one of those people
who said
LET'S SWEAT IT OUT
LET'S SWEAT OUT THE POISON

and stephanie
turned off the TV
but she refuses
to turn off the lights

and bucky
the great train robber
won't say
that he's sorry

we'll make up
lies about our
respective cities
"oh nobody
smokes cigarettes
here"
party politics
this side
of the atlantic