The Current

Kick open my front door.

Slam it behind me.

Scream into the dark house.

Doesn't help.

Scream again.

Doesn't help.

Scream again.

Throw the beer through the living room and into the kitchen. It hits the refrigerator two rooms away and in the dark I hear it crash, and I hear the beer spill and I scream again.

Four in the morning and I've been holding it back all night. Four in the morning and I've been holding you back all night.

You, honey eyes.

You, the other me.

This keeps happening and I'm back to insomnia and a friend told me they thought of sleeping pills but took a walk and changed their mind and I considered sleeping pills then but enough of them. No more.

I keep doing this.

Scream.

Doesn't help.

Fall to the floor and in the dark room I can hear the hum of the current through the house. Burn. Burn. Lay there and breathe and choke and imagine. No sleep. No dreams.

Breathe. Choke. Imagine.



In the morning I go to work. Keep busy. Don't think.

Keep busy. Try not to think.

Keep busy. Pretend I don't think.

Drink. Choke. Imagine.

My throat is sore and my chest aches. I stare and see nothing.

Snow Through the Night

Then winter.

Snow came the second week of December. Early, and in a foot. I was off work for a couple days and drank and watched it fall and wished I had more to drink and wished I was motivated. I fucked around with the guitar. With the organ. With the time. Snow fell in large swathes, in gentle pieces, gliding through the air, dancing never colliding, and finally resting as a new world, in love upon the last. Upon the leaves and grass, barbecues and t-shirts. Goodbye autumn. Goodbye hope of fortune. Goodbye to you, last strand of summer love. Goodbye.

Drink and watch the snow.

I never minded a snowstorm, and preferred a blizzard. I disliked winter intensely, though I loved snowfall. The ease of it. The way it seemed to hold warmth in the air. The comradery of the neighborhood shoveling together. The teenagers running and sliding on their boots down the street. The almost cheerful drone of the plows a few streets over. I would like to exist in two worlds; a world only in the third week of July, and a world perpetually in a neighborhood blizzard between 3 and 9 p.m..

Drink and watch the snow.

The thought of suicide had been kicking around a lot lately. My last honest attempt, the last time I went through with it was in August, but the last time I made plans... Wrote the note. Packed the bag full of rope and went to the bridge, well, that was only a month back. Suicide never really left my mind, as I assume it never really left anyone's. Are we not innately designed to want to die and lie to ourselves about it? I always felt as though my mental defect wasn't the suicide bit, it was the lying bit. I was terrible with lying to myself. I hate winter, but I admit I love snowfall.

Drink and watch the snow.

Dev was over, making enchiladas in my kitchen and I had a beer in my hand. The dark began to drift into the air, over the roofs and awnings, branches and snowbanks. On my stereo Chopin danced and flit and I eventually changed it over to Nick Cave and I sat in my house. My hovel. My warm portion of the cold town. I ate an enchilada. I drank. Through the dark the snowfall was invisible though I still found myself wandering to the window. Waiting for headlights to share a moment of peace with me. Waiting. Loving.

Drink and hope to watch the snow.

Drink and hope to love.

Snow, through the night, fell. I, through the night, loved.

A Silence for Voices

Five in the morning.

The house is dark and still.

I am on my side and my eyes are open. My brain is on fire and I miss you. I should have let you go completely, or not at all. Headfirst, or not at all. There is a pressure in my skull, between and behind my eyes. There is a choke in my chest, waiting for a moment to escape. There is a numbness through my skin and a silence in my throat because when it breaks, it all breaks.

Five in the morning and my eyes are open.

Christmas morning and now I drift through the empty house. The void, four bedrooms, two baths. The gifts you won't get. Memories we won't make. Worse, memories we did. Worse, memories you make alone now.

Fridge.

Beer.

Throw the first one back to kill the thirst, to satiate. No luck. Try again. Keep trying.

Through the window, past the goddamn reflection, I see the snow coming and heavy. I finish the other beer and put pants on. Shoes. Gloves. Coat. Fill a bag with more beer, and into the dark and snow.

Six inches or so. The stillness soothes but it leaves too much room for me. It leaves a silence for voices. My shoes are already wet. Open a beer. One glove to keep warm, one fingerless glove to open cans and text if it comes up.

The choke sits in my chest. Lodged. The pressure shifts, turns.

Earlier in the night I ran into the cop that tried to stop my suicide. He checks on me from time to time and I thanked him for being nice to me. He said he liked my art and when I walked away to go home I cried a little but the air froze it and eventually me. Goddamnit.

Goddamnit.

I am encased in snow already and each time I drink I eat a little snow and it gets in my eyes but I need to know the world continues. I need to know I am inconsequential. I need to know I am unimportant so I walk the middle of the street in a tire track and I stare in dark windows and hope the houses are warm and there is love in the rooms.

I only want love in your lives.

A car drives slow through the snow and dark far away from me and I wish them well and then they are gone. They never knew I was there.

I don't know where I am walking, I just keep going. I am cold. My fingers are numb and two more beers are gone and I remember I hadn't showered after work. Just got drunk and went home and got drunk and fell asleep. I try to remind myself to shower when I get home. Maybe I will. I come to an area with wi-fi and my phone picks it up. I stop under a tree and let whatever notifications are coming.

You.

A screen shot of a note on your phone. It's from my birthday last year and it is a poem about 'when I leave I will leave a symphony' or something. Prophetic, I suppose.


I don't know why you sent this to me.


I won't kill myself on Christmas. I won't jump off the Golden Gate. I won't hang in the Sea of Trees. I saw the cop earlier that night and I hadn't for a little while and I wonder, a little playfully, if he is still stopping my suicide. Should have knocked the fucking wine out of my coat or the beer out of my hand. I'll do it slow and miserably.


I want to see you, you say.


I am standing in front of apartments at five thirty in the morning. Drinking, freezing. See this.



So come, I say.

Tonight. Are you okay? You're acting really strange.

I'm fine. Always fine.

I love you.

Okay.



A snow plow crashes down the road and I step back as the wave of snow and ice falls violently around and I know he can pay his rent, the driver. I know he doesn't want to be awake right now, I know he'd rather be curled up to Warm Lovely Girl, but he can pay his rent and I envy him. I wish him luck and then he is gone and he never knew I was there.

I don't finish our conversation, I just leave. I leave the apartments and the wi-fi. Maybe you'll show up tonight. Maybe you won't. Maybe I won't. It's hard to tell.

I throw an empty can at a porch and hunched against the snow I walk nowhere. None of these sleeping people know I was there. None of these excited children know I was there. I've been trying to tell you all my name, and now I am thankful I haven't. Open the last beer and I miss you.

Dark and the snow.