Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Oh, doll...

She holds her hands in funny shapes, and keeps on laughing, cause he can't just hate her when she's laughing, right? He looks at her tits, which is safer. They have that quality that otters do, stroking industriously through sweaters. They inspire that strange childhood in him.
Her hands do birds, then wrenches, then scarves, and she's just fucking laughing.
He bores a neat little hole in her forehead with his mind and all the shit comes drooling out onto her hands; onto more birds, wrenches, scarves, branches, bridges. Shitbirds Cockwrench Crapscarf Shadow Puppet. Goddamn if she would just stop laughing he could call her stupid, or come on her hair. Something classy; something timely; fucking SOMEthing.
She has bad poetry in her, and mostly words- just words- no will behind them, she has youth and she has fire, but she just keeps on burning off her hair. You think she'd sit down, and write a poem about that. Write about the nature of such fire while bangs still smolder, baby, get it done for once, don't dilly dollar. Make it holler.
But maybe she has a use or two left in her.
He stands, and takes her manic hands, and lifts her gently to her feet, and folds her into dotted lines and otter-tits all neatly stacked away and thinks 'Well, this is it- no turning back.'
And she's just fucking laughing.
He stretch-and-crease unfurls her till she's flat and useful, and he makes a boat of her, and climbs inside her and paddles off on a sea of shit so sweet, so familiar it's like breastmilk, baby- nectar. You've been swimming in this shit so long it holds you soft as feathers in its arms. Her face is laughing from the keel, and he lovingly, tenderly, puts the heel of his foot into her teeth and presses till she's still.
Together, love. Together we will see what we can see.
A blacklight in this boat would show the stains of semen, everywhere, and Who-Knows whose it is, these glowing bits of waste and spite. Oh, oh, but she's all right.
And somewhere off ahead he'll leave her just to float, and she'll spit out teeth and start to laugh, and feel like shit for letting him steer.
Some far-off shore will welcome her, and fruit trees heavy with old citrus will bow to pull her back to shape, and she'll balloon, and laugh, and laugh, and monkeys there will see her for the predator she is, and hide their trembling babes behind their arms and squeal in feeble terror, tree to tree.
He's off smoking Cubans on Skid Row, sweetheart, and your cupped hands can't make no scarves, no wrenches, bunnies, trembling trucks. You've lost the will to fuck.
So useful once, and sometimes fun, and harmful to most everyone.
She tries the locals, tires the locals, fires the locals, has a child. Swears off, and two years later cycles through again. The locals love her, though they wonder where her shoes are, and why she drinks the rainwater from coconuts and not from plastic bottles. She takes bruises like she takes a kiss. Its like she just can't miss.
And years gone by, still stranded there, she'll dandle children on her knee, and tell them tales of lives lived- gone. She'll play trombone wrapped in a sheet, and smash blacklights mercilessly. She'll dance poorly to old phonographs and wash herself in rainstorms, play with blocks and forge new swords from spring steel out from under cars, she'll map the planets, dig a well, and bite her fingernails too far.She'll pull her hair from out her scalp and milk the sap from husks of fruit and wonder why she kept on laughing, all those years, when there was nothing funny happening.
Not for miles around.

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