by Ryan Adams
taking as much to disappear as needed
in phrases until mutter comes
or dawn
or both
and I trash my inside to reflect walls with receipts
and directions to nobody’s house covering it.
sick sick sick
and nobody calls.
I got a blue idea
a blue idea for a blonde
and neat rows of teeth gone crooked from crime
and bum notes
and cash
I wanna try to remember what it was that made me happen so fast
or kill it in one go
paint a target on the ceiling of my room
and open my eyes one morning
surrounded by somebody better than me
and prettier than you
sick sick sick sick
I make myself sick
and this is why you love me.
Red
Red
sleeping in the pile
of pillows
blueberry gardens
in her closed
freckled eyes
lids shut soft
under a halo
of curls and fire
Red
dictionary legged
brittle
closes the book
and returns to the rock
with her light
ships gone mad
she signals
into the frenzy of white
water
Red
do you hear my voice inside your head
when you see a pitiful thing?
do you like to watch the weak ones fall
when you see a weakness giving?
Red Red Red Red Red
go on, put your hand in his hand again
dance with someone
everything is music and lights
shining in the ballroom dresses
and shoes and feather caps
silver and gold and gray
clouds
out the window where we are
where i am in the hustling
crowds of winter coats and bodies
slightly drifting further down
the river of tar
and broadway in calm
swift movements of panic and loss
my life
was
Red
sleeping in the pile
of pillows
blueberry gardens
in her closed
freckled eyes
lids shut soft
under a halo
of curls and fire
soon it will be time to go
soon it will be time to go
the kids will lead
the adults
to the jackets and coats
by the door
and rattling upon the floor
near the shoes
will be the encore
for the night
and once the handle turns
the first ones go
the dark street outside
will suck us all dry
from our skin
to our bones
into it
and we will scatter like seeds
on a single flower
single
rainflowers
and in that house
the music will dim
the table a mess
a wreck
only plates
of bones
and i will know the names
and faces
burned into my eyes
like
a book with no spine
and endless pages
because if not now
soon
Spit Hits My Face
once she spits in your face
not really
but close
close like everything done is fuck you
close as a person gets
before their spit flies from their mouth
and lands on your cheek
warm and smelling of salt
and filth
it is over
but a war
that i won’t win or fight begins and all inside a head
to kill the one who went inside them
that is the fucking curse
is having this dick
and this ability with words
and meaning shit
that is the fucking reason everything is fuck you and spit hits your face without
a sound
and her not even there
who is fucking
who is sleeping from depression
who cares
fuck fuck fuck
a bottle of seltzer
some cotton swabs
a cutting razor
band-aids
a piece of flesh-colored tape
cut
cut
cut
till it feels like it did when you would make yourself sick
and vomit
in case you weren’t perfect enough
in case we went too deep and someone said i love you
spit hits my face.
every night
here
alone
guilty as a dogbone
chewed up
off the roof of a speeding car
thrown
beheaded by truth
dethroned
from my tower of bullshit
thank you
no
seriously
spit
spit
spit
spit hits my face
forever
forever
i deserve it.
It’s Time
it is time for me
to turn
the rope round the dolly
and cast the boat
back
into the sea of black
concrete and tar
and take the things i believe
are me
with me
away from the grilled cake
of this apartment
and i am just numb
and sad
and rooftops bruised
with sun and snow tan
and madness
minus the act
somewhere in the past
i turn your face into a laugh
all the way from your stomach
and we lie quietly
and sleep
cheek to cheek
like children
who found each other in the woods
hungry
and in need of sleep
and
if i stay inside that dream
one more week
i will die here
an old woman
for the loss of you
in my old man clothes
growing old with you in my dreams
like an electric blueberry tree
on pills
sweet and not mean
and
i’d rather go out there and fight
fight for it
till i run out of steam
i’d rather fish
now
but won’t because they all know
i’d throw them back
who could eat
in times like this
but you, or people starving hungry
so i untie the rope
and push myself back
and off i go
off
into some new unknown
sad
like you never seen
I Am a Cemetery
so i am a cemetery of new ideas again today
yay
i got greased by lightning and terrified
and whatnot
went to the diner
and it felt bad bad bad
i walk steadily alone
by myself
with the new
one
and even today she said,
“it feels like there is a ghost in the room”
so there it is
again
you
so i am a cemetery of new ideas again today
patches of clouds of red hair
faint laughter
i resume doing nothing constantly
i am becoming like the hen
clucking around the henhouse at night
screaming for the eggs
like the nest
ill-fitted for the swollen bird who cannot fly
for wings too long
and body too large to fit inside
and this is why i am me
and sorry
and swollen with pride
i am like ten examples
at once
watching them collide
like broken dinner plates in mid-air crash
boom and bang
crashing as i catacomb into the tile
i should have stayed simply alone longer
for a while
so i am a cemetery of new ideas again today
But Still
I am haunted up the coast
it can’t be soon enough
that sand
that gets in your toes
goes back to the side of the sea
and our ship is forgotten
off the reef
and abandoned for a mossy grave
and fish
curious
and interested in the dark deep places
they dwell
I am haunted in the house
it can’t be for this long
that sound
that rings like my voice
talks to you still in accidental phrase
when it is for me
or someone else
deserved
with good will
calm
slowly my tanks refill themselves with new things
and light
but still
I am haunted
it can’t be for long
and
it can’t be soon enough
but still
Every Day
Every Day I Die some
turn some
i get up to the gate
i buy the ticket
i wait
i watch others go by
every one
i wonder to myself if it cares
the hole
going
is it through
i don’t
not if it’s going to mean something
something to her
and not me
trying to erase a “you”
a her
to me,
i will not miss the swing
false tides and moon
throwing my face against the wall
i violate my own space
struggle
born like that
a closed-open wound
disgusting
and always too soon
i am all this
so i wait
unafraid
lazy in fact and faint
barely a person
barely
skydragon
skydragon
your reflection casts light back into sky-swallowing clouds
rolling and gray
doing inner ear like shapes
inside themselves
there are lights on inside you
people in there
turning them on and off
like skin cells
activating a new tingle
in your metallic body
in your perfect way
standing alone
indifferent
cold
like a fuck-you to the sun and the night
like a drunk
skydragon
off Fifth Avenue
you old whore you fucking crooked face
did you let yourself get that way
from design
or from lack of the energy to stray
because you got tired
and if he crawled over you
in merry ol’ England
maybe you might get some sleep
and it’s more trouble to be desired
than had
or so you thought
in his hotel room, in his bed
even though you said he wore you down
that rat-face
that scumbag
you let inside
his office empty but his name upon the door forever
wasteful
on your way home somefuckingwhere
wherever that was
Almost Out
i am almost out
ten cigarettes went quick
like that
half a day
one left
with a butt in the tray
i’ll smoke that as i write
ok?
i have a face burnt in my eyes
i have a hand burnt into my hand
i have a heart
or what is left of one
a rolling desert
fucked white with sand
and bright
from heat
saturated into the light
in my gills
when i turn into the fish
out of the water tank
into her cup
like a lower-class wish
i am a volcano
i am ready to erupt
a tsunami
smashing into her coast
pulverizing the beach
making toast out of a hotel lobby
nice
with your nose raised and glazed
like a donut covered in salami
so snobby
flying like a witch to an invitational snitch
gathering
pink lights shine above a liquor store
called “the pink elephant”
now THAT’s funny
i know those people
their sad dinner food
their reluctant sway
they too
are almost out
we are all
almost out
of something
almost.
Cease Fire
once the fires of hell cease
cease fire
and the smoke clears
that is what i started with
those words today
i stop
looking at your face
or thinking
about your hands
i loved them
i loved your hands
hands
like if they were designed by a god
regardless
of him
an afterthought
when he made them
like a painter
slashing a definitive historical line
across a canvas
as he turned
to discuss the morning news
with an old friend
that was your hands
on
my skin
and
today the sun eats the spaces
between buildings
dogs go crazy people lightly cuss
and the colors
people wear
go thoughtless
because
we have a temperature
and everyone is
aware of their neck
chest and back
for
small patches of wet
salty pools
and
of all days
of any day
as i sit and wait
to leave
for no reason
i
imagine
your hands again
and not the faces of men
they touch now
n
or
their long digits fiddling with pens
or thank you notes
or receipts
nor
of them silently at your side
waiting
to dart
into the air
at a party because there is always a party
and how the ends of them will turn in
like claws on an eagle
when
you make that point
when you stress the word
so hard
it bends
then breaks
and becomes
an actual word floating
before us all
hovering in mid-air
for
your mouth made it
and your hands
they
were enough to break a heart
watching them
lie still
across your side
as
you slept
in
those beautiful days
the
future
looks
so
fucked
now
Dream Past This
If you dreamed past this
past this part
with me
you would see the raspberry hollows
marsh-mossed rock
and what my eyes are
those
blue
two
loose
marbles
and surround us, very little light between us
in the dark spaces
would he like neon outlines
and you
you would speak “speekahlikah thees”–laughing
and you
“speekalikah that” as we talked of our original
first or
in my case
lower-class mythology stomping grounds
and i would laugh
like a Southerner does
because
we are taught young to make much fun
of others, despite ourselves,
cobwebbed duck-limbed south
people we are
even when we defect like me
a defector
dedicated to an island
as if to share
a recreational dream
or an isolation
masked
as a shared dream
my born-cross, every fell pine rocked of its salt
from the air of the coast
my miserable cobblestoned wishes
and that God-forsaken ocean
that sound of doom and chaos
it created
it really brought me to my knees in despair
those forever-nights
BUT
if you dreamed past this part
you’d see me
strawberry-red, laughing so hard
over milkshakes in a diner so bright
so alight with you
or
something, something just like this
maybe waiting, maybe
if i trust my spells of tireless excitement
this city
maybe
if
BubbleGummed
(for Mary-Louise)