remembered with regret
John Sweet, born in 1968, believer in writing as catharsis, opposed to all organized religion and all formal schools of poetry. Homeowner, neurotic, manic depressive, widely published on paper and computer screens around the world. Recent collections include "Famine" and "Human Cathedrals". Mild-mannered civil servant by day, high-strung insomniac by night, currently in debt and actively seeking donations. Knows where to find you, if necessary, so don't say you weren't warned. https://www.myspace.com/bleedinghorsedenied https://bleedinghorse.blogspot.com/
Joe Quinn
miss xanax
She says
"you don't have to watch"
As she gets things ready
Cellophane wrapper from a cigarette pack
A lighter
A cut straw
The pills
She says
"you don't have to watch
But I need to do this"
Takes the pills
Places them on the glass top table
Places the cellophane wrapper over them
Slides the lighter in slight crunches
The pale pink pills turn to dust
She says
"you're not going to cry are you?"
She takes an ID in which she's smiling
Says she's an organ donor
But she won't give me her heart
The card cuts lines
Leaves trails of thin dust behind
Dirty honey hair hangs down to the glass
And the straw jerks moving slow and then fast
She says
"you're not going to cry are you?"
I lie to her for the first time
helen of troy
I don't know how to get what I want
cause you don't know what you want
but I wish you'd just
steal my fucking heart
and run with it
take me to the ocean
take your sweet time
take whatever all these sleepless people
would consider a crime
make me feel alive
I will fall to you
open my city wide
and call to you
take me over
take me over
I will wave this gas soaked flag
before your burning eyes
silver bullets for everyone
tear the meat
from the bones of these dreams
and place it firmly
in your mouth
let it crash against your teeth
like the tides to the beach
and what's left
let the water carry it out
and if it changes color
if it's litmus
we'll find synonyms for these simple crayons
name our children after them
and raise them like flags
are we wolves?
she asks
we come in packs
crayons in our youth
cigarettes as we burn out
are we animals?
she cries
beautiful in the moonlight
silver bullets for everyone
Joe Quinn is a 29 year old poet living in Kentucky. His second collection, "Love Story in Braille", is currently available online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and at stores.lulu.com/welcomehomeironlung. More information as well as samples and photography are available at welcomehomeironlung.com.
A Slow Moment
Yvonne Zheng
You've somehow subconsciously logged him into your body. Every morning, you wake up to the flutter of his eyelashes against the back of your neck. The curtains give a little shake, stealing wisps of sunlight into its soft beat, and you give a little smile across your spine. In a slow moment, you turn over to kiss his eyes but catch only gauzy air. A diaphanous image of what was never yours.
Sigh.
Now all you see is stuccoed ceiling, an expanse of alabaster to reflect the rumble that has become lifeless. You lie there, blinking only to appease a nerve. You're tired. You feel faceless. You feel sick – where is that heavy odor coming from? Hurriedly, your eyes fix themselves on the clock – 12:34 p.m. in angry red. Huh. Isn't that something – they begin to pulsate – the numbers, I mean – and one by one, like vultures, swoop over your head, then again, and again...
Ever since he rushed out of your life, you've become uglier. You can barely look at yourself. Everyone you know thinks you are happy because of your youth and your certainty, but these are, of course, false impressions – you've allowed the faces of your successful friends, your contented colleagues, relatives, and acquaintances to usurp your own appearance, so that now your only job is to exhaust yourself with this faux buoyancy. At the center of your chest, the roots of your life have curled unwittingly into a state of obsolescence. No amount of recognition could restore them back to what they originally were. But what does this matter? You're dead anyway.
Another sigh.
Yet for all those feelings, all those sentiments, they will never amount to those other feelings, those other sentiments. You used to feel so much. You used to see colors, and distinguish them, and taste them. Their flavors were ornate and flamboyant, so intricate in their entirety. You used to pick up every detail, every note and tone of those colors. And those colors were colors he gave you, delivered neatly in a present-box, an explosion of sensation awaiting within. You were a child then, receiving your very first set of acrylic paints. He taught you what to capture, where to find the colors, and how to unify those splatters of pigment into loud, blazing shades you could never forget. He did his job: you never forgot them. But as with everything else, great lessons learned are stored into memories, and memories inevitably fade. Consequently, the flavors are remembered, but the tastes forgotten. Time has glossed itself over your past, rounded your heart's tongue into stone. The only way to keep a moment from slipping, from dying into a memory, is to keep it going. But alas – this is too ambitious a thought.
When you were younger, Nanette used to always tell you that choosing a lover was better than being chosen by one. You never quite understood what she meant. Then one day, when he charged into your life as if by a burst of wind, you felt deliciously golden and you sparkled deliberately, with all the self-assured intent you could muster, right in front of Nanette's darting eyes and defeated mouth. Privileges are given, never concocted out of thin air. Indeed, you felt deliriously lucky to hold his hands in the little cafes and to occasionally smooth his eyebrows with open caresses. You were his puzzle project, and he put you together.
Once, he pulled the duvet over your body and held tightly. You felt the severe heat of his embrace and allowed yourself to burn in his passion. I think... he was cautious enough to allow you armor, a protection of cotton and down. Still, your heart was ablaze and turbulent in the force of his temper, a temper which blew castles into your spirit. He was everything... and he gave you your life – conducted your repertoire of dreams. You never imagined that he'd go so quickly – never could have envisioned that solemn day he put on his Oxfords and sprinted for the train. You helped him pack his suitcase the evening prior to his departure. Your face was nestled wretchedly in the arches of his neck and you begged him to return soon. You were despondent already, anxiously huddling over what was left of the light, struggling to prevent it from meeting the arctic draft. He lifted the bend of your chin and said lightly, "I can't make you any promises." And then he vanished, leaving behind him a trail of fallen petals.
You've somehow subconsciously logged him into your body. You wake up to the flutter of his eyelashes against the back of your neck. The windows are shut; it is cold and unclear outside. A chill crawls across your spine, and in a slow moment, you lift a palm to shield your nape.
Sigh.
He never came back. You waited, of course. You waited in the dark of closets, where you all
owed yourself to flood your eyes. Later, you waited in a sea of camaraderie, a place to smile and laugh patiently against a sinking heart. You expected no less from yourself. You measured the time in seasons, and soon lost your conception of seconds, minutes, and hours to meaningless instances. You simply waited and let the moments go by. You waited, only to die with a treasure chest of all your recollections. A trove of dusty senses carved into the gravity of earth. A casket filled with quiet prayers.
By the time you get out of bed, the sky is roaring blue. Hurriedly, your eyes fix themselves on the clock – 1:23 p.m. Your heart breaks, keeps on breaking, has always been broken. You think time is unforgiving and cruel. You put on your clothes, eat breakfast, and open the door to a tree-lined street: busy and moving. Whisking through it, you are a bubbled vessel made of resilient cellophane. When the light hits the lines of your face, you shut your eyes and walk on. In a slow moment, you will open them again.
Yvonne Zheng is a college student from Portland, Oregon. Her hobbies include biking, drinking tea, and consuming donuts (maple is a favorite). She enjoys concocting stories from the rubbish she purchases by the pound at the local Goodwill outlet store. Her work has not been published elsewhere.
Break Aside
Kristi Yorks
She is walking, alone, in the dark. It is two, maybe three, something completely irrelevant, something that doesn’t really matter. She is holding a cigarette in her hand. She is wearing a short green dress and gold sequined heels. Her hair is sticking up in all the wrong places. Her lip is split. Two of her nails have been ripped off. It makes holding a cigarette difficult.
Damn,” she thinks, and keeps walking.
I.
His name was James but that was not his real name. He told her to call her by his real name. Not the name of his birth but the name of his re-birth.
“My name is Osiris,” he said. “Call me Osiris.”
“Why?” She asked and called him Jimmy as a compromise.
Jimmy only drank filtered water and Spanish wine. He had traveled the world and felt justified in calling himself enlightened. Jimmy was convinced of his potential, and he found evidence of his genius, everywhere. He spoke with conviction. He was centered and focused. He directed all his energy towards the future he was dreaming himself into – a yoga studio, a house and a car, a career at the investment firm, a six digit salary, and a quiet place where he could retreat and write and not be bothered – the life, he said, of a true artist.
“Really?” she asked, amused and unable to disguise her sarcasm.
“This is important,” he said. “THIS is about me.”
Jimmy dared her to disagree.
II.
She loved strange characters and drunk conversations that lasted until dawn. She never dreamed and insisted that sleep was a complete waste of time. She had a phobia of locked doors and cold water.
She was a waitress at an Italian restaurant down the road. She scribbled haikus on her checks so her tables would remember her:
Merlot corner table
Her lips are red
Red like the earth
At dawn.
Skin like porcelin
Cold. Cream?
No. You’ll take your coffee
Black.
When Jimmy would come to pick her up, he would sit and wait in a corner.
She was never sure of his intentions. But she liked that about him. She liked his arrogance, his indifference to her, his complete lack of shame.
Jimmy liked to watch her. He entertained her fascinations. She amused him. He liked the blind strength, the conviction, of her innocence.
When they were alone, he whispered in her ear, “you are what would happen if God spent an hour on an etch-a-sketch.”
“Thanks,” she said, thought about it, and asked a minute later, “what does that mean?”
“If you treat a woman like a book, she’ll read like a book.”
“What?”
“With reverence,” he added, “something worth having.”
III.
He always called her at the worst times, when she was at work or in class – she began to think he did it on purpose. He left long messages on her answering machine – five minutes of gibberish, baby sounds, a run-on of obscure words whose meaning he was sure no one else could possibly know.
If her machine cut his line of thought short, he’d call back and continue, picking up right where he left off until he was completely satisfied.
When she called back, hours later, he asked, “Do you know what hippopotomonstrous means?”
“No.”
“It’s the fear of big words.”
“That’s a funny thing to be afraid of.”
He stopped.
“I want you to come over,” he said, “I realized something today.”
“What?”
“You care about me.”
He hung up.
IV.
He drove the wrong way down a one way street and parked in the middle of the road. She was sitting on the curb. Jimmy told her how happy he was to see her.
When she stepped into the car, he gave her a list of his favorite wines. Tonight they were going to the liquor store. They were going to do things, like normal couples, like buy wine, and watch movies, and hold hands. He had a plan and was very happy with himself for thinking of it.
But it was Sunday. The liquor store was closed, and he was very angry.
She hated him when he was angry.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, waited and repeated, “this is ridiculous.”
“You’re silly,” she said. His grip around her wrists tightened.
They went to the supermarket, as a compromise, to buy a few random things – sponges, energy drinks, snacks for later.
He spent ten minutes in the detergent isle.
“Do you think the green stuff on a scotch brite is organic?” he asked.
“Why would it matter?”
“It can’t be natural. Nothing that color is natural.”
“It’s green.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” he said.
“Understand what?”
“I’m not mad at you for not understanding. But how do you expect to learn anything if you don’t listen to me?”
They drove back to his apartment. He had to park across the street. All the spots in the parking lot were taken.
It was always little things that set him off.
He hit the steering wheel. “I’m mad,” he said with conviction, “that makes me an asshole, doesn’t it? I am an asshole, aren’t I?”
“Sort of,” she said.
“You’re not supposed to agree with me,” he whispered.
She laughed. She didn’t know what else to say.
V.
His apartment was small but warm. She told him it felt like a home with all his things, his books, his clothes, lying on the floor.
“It’s dirty,” he reminded her, “sweetie, find your spot, please,” while he made himself a snack.
She had a spot in his apartment, a place that he set aside just for her - a chair where she was supposed to sit, where she was supposed to put her things, her purse, her scarf, her jacket, when she came over.
She never remembered. She hated the thought of being boxed in, of being confined to so small a space. She would spread her self out, in corners, on the counter, on the table, on the floor.
He hated that about her.
She sat on the bed and watched as he assembled the various pieces of her and put them back where they belonged.
“Aren’t you happy?” He asked her.
“About what?”
“That you’re with me. I’m not afraid to express what I feel,” he wrapped his hands around her back and pushed down. “How many men have you been with who can say that?”
She said nothing.
VI.
She remembered.
>
Jimmy had called himself a Yogi. He was obsessed with the legend of himself and he embellished that self with big words he imagined into reality. It was his right, he claimed, as a poet to re-write himself. Just for her.
But when she committed him to memory, she remembered that he was tall, strong, confident. He smiled, even when he was upset, even when he was frustrated, even when he was angry. He smelled like spice and chai. He told her stories about Tibet and India and Africa. He told her that he loved her mind, her imagination.
He told her that she looked like a ballerina, like a fairy. He called her his muse.
That was the part she remembered, the part she loved about him.
Still, she could never bring herself to call him by his real name.
VII.
On his bed, he told her she was weightless. Like a little bird. Something precious. Something easily broken. He told her she was built for him to love.
He grabbed her hand. He wouldn’t let go.
He said, “slow and hard. I’ll give it to you.”
Slow.
Hard.
“Pretend,” he said, “pretend not to like it.”
Black Out
She is walking.
It’s cold. There is a storm coming. A blanket of clouds wraps around the hills. The leaves brush across the concrete, rolling over her toes, like crinkled tissue paper. The wind is sharp. The trees bend in shadows. A lamp on the curb flickers.
Her shoulders are bare and she can’t stop shivering. She left her jacket, somewhere in his apartment and she is not going back to get it.
“Fuck it.”
Kristi is a poet, artist, and story teller, currently attending Naropa University's Masters program for Writing and Poetics. She writes, finding her voice in the shadow of the mountain and realizing inspiration in touch, and the landscapes of her own body and memory. Her work can be found in the upcoming issue of Monkey Puzzle Press, on street corners, coffee houses, or scattered somewhere in the mountains, where she feels most at home. She would like to thank everyone who has touched her, in some way, and who has left a mark that she can now trace in ink.
The Battered Suitcase November 2008 Page 6