I & II

I

 

I watch myself learning “life skills.” That’s what my therapist calls them. These need to know tools that prepare you for the “real world.”
Her name is sue and she speaks softly. I like that.

I watch myself learning that time moves on and things cannot be reversed but no one has ever told me what to do with these feelings that I am left over with?
Time is a banana and I am left with too many dirty peels. Sometimes I will curl up in them and feed off those stringy things that are on bananas,
The ones that wont come off your finger when you shake it.

But am I any better by acknowledging these life skills? I still want what I can’t have and cry when the seasons change, wishing for the summer of last year.
There is a little garbage can in my brain. It sits there between the frontoral lobe and the brain stem. It’s like one of those endless holes Alice falls through.
All the bad memories go there. I don’t ask them to go away, but when I am curled up in that peel, I can’t remember a single bad thing happening.

That’s why I want it so bad.
That’s why I want it so bad.

I watched the basketball diaries today. It made me realize that if things had not run their course like they did, I could have easily wound up in Pedro’s basement giving sticky blow jobs for heroin.
Maybe by choosing memories as my drug, I saved myself.
Maybe, if you had not stopped it, I would have had no choice.


But even after writing that down, taking a sip of water and re-reading,

That banana peel looks a little too inviting.

 

II

 

It looks cold outside but I know it’s not.

the world has long been stuck to me. the strongest meaning going from most past to furthest past.

It looks cold outside. The sky, so opaquely gray you cant imagine anything above it. The leaves are thinking the same thing, looking up and trying to picture remote blue. Hard to remember when it seems so out of reach. Out of reach. The only things in reach are yet to come. Can’t I reach back? The current wont let me but I still try. Can't i reach back?

The cold that I picture outside has me walking in it. Away from this house with a stinging cold slap me in the face, I'll receive it with a smile. I’m going places dangerous. Seeing people that make that quiver in my knee spread to my whole body. The cold and he. He and the cold go hand in hand. But who is he? Not me, and I am the only one I know best. Why bother with the he’s, they never knew the reason i really blush. If they did, they would be disappointed.

The cold outside is not cold. It is 71 degrees to be exact, according to the outside Home Depot thermostat. I want that cold. I want that cold because I want what is out of reach. No, I am not talking about the future. But isn’t it funny how cold is in the near future and I am asking for colds that have come and gone. Reaching back. Dipping my hand into the ice and grasping, grasping to find IT.

I can’t define IT. I used to want to but I have realized now that IT is just that exactly. It is it.


It warm outside. Warm enough for a tank top. Warm enough to feel the breeze without goosebumps. So why do I want IT? Cold is dangerous.

Cold is dangerous just like you were. I met you in cold and you left me in cold,
you are cold.

I want it back. I will do everything you asked, yes I will even jump off my roof onto the porch so we can go to all of the 2 AM parties even though the last bus was at 12:40. We talked about it but I wouldn’t do it. Too many what if’s.
I never found out what happened to your whatifs

Maybe sometime I’ll tell you about it

He would say. So mysterious, everything I wish I was.

It’s warm outside and it looks cold.
Or maybe that’s because the god damn air conditioner is at 50 degrees in this damn place.