In Response to Your Suicide Note

Speaking to a lover of the past in dreams;
his expression is flat, he doesn’t hear me.
I'm invoking a blank wall
textured, painted cream cinder blocks of a prison
strapped to babies’ chests in a boiling bath,
summoning across the whole, wide world.
He doesn’t respond--
not to pins and needles
stabbing him full of steroids,
not to my dearest caresses
and loving gestures.

He won't even spit It back out at me.
Null.
Did my bleeding roses lie untouched
upon the shadowy, now empty stage?

No. No. No.
I am the puppet master not the puppet,
you see.
If I so desire, you'll respond to me.

“I’ll show you,” I said,
but instead
I showed myself:
being true to me means knowing what I need
and choosing who I am and am going to be.
Not your baby doll, or your desperate whore,
or par for the course in low self-esteem.

You showed me.

You are the puppet master not the puppet,
I’d see.
If you so desire, I will respond to you.

You died that day.
Put a noose around your fucking neck,
the whole world melted away.

They won’t even let me read your suicide note.
I’m just your ex-girlfriend.
Now here I dance, in pink, with other men,
planning my own permanent solution.

Dear World; I wonder if you’ve been okay without me.
Wonder if I’ll ever see you again.

Who was I when I thought I lost myself?
Not dancing, but... but... being pulled by
the puppet strings, attached to my limbs from yours,
covered myself with a thick layer of oil paint and glitter,
exposed myself to loud incessant rhythm of suicide bombers
always always trying to be free but never being free,
with whiskey blades and the chiming buzzing insistent
radio tv, linoleum electric turntables dreams and visions,

but there’s this love in me that keeps me stable, drifting,
afloat in the ocean, sinking, lifting, hurricanes & strife,
along in the River of Life.

You showed it to me when I had all those questions,
that could only be answered at the End of your life:

I really don’t know exactly who I am and am going to be,
but I’m One with the Universe and it’s
here on these pages
everyone I meet
forming One True Big Picture.

I’m learning how to live, even when in the corner of my eye,
shape shifters slide by; proceed with precaution to
the light and movement of the safe sanctuary,
quiet and serene spaces each sacred feeling
graduates, gently sloping, carrying me
along and that might make me a puppet on a string,
but my life isn’t over yet, I’ll never know what (if not null) it truly meant.

2009-2010




Aside: This poem was started 10 November 2009. RIP Sgt. D.J. Kirkland 20 March 2010. Somehow, I must have already known what was coming.

MUSICAL CHAIRS

The friction of Just Being Alive
dissolves when I'm with you.
The jazz slides into me smoothly,
like milk-- cooly encapsulating the raging stomach.
Everything disappears--
pretzelled, entwined in your arms,
my Cave,
we're both safe from the elements.

My guts rebel at the realization that
THE TIMING MIGHT BE WRONG,
or, quite frankly,
THERE MIGHT BE SOMETHING
REALLY WRONG WITH ME.
And you'll eventually see.
For you, happiness comes so naturally,
slinking back is easy,
your music is all you really need.
Inside me, the clock of inner dialogue ticks,
never satisfied.

Your answers to my questions, repeated, are so ambiguous.
I dug myself into a pit extemporaneously.
Now expectations, also known as hopes and dreams,
float free from me not freeing me,
I'm just trying to be too controlling.
The waves (sound, light, sea) are rolling over me,
trying to flood my raft
in a sea of men, but you, my dear,
are the one I want--
to guide me on our misguided trip through
a jungle of possibilities.

Would any amount of love
be enough for you to want to hold onto it?
You're wearing a question mark
on the deep and empty mirror, your face,
grab on to strangle you, strangle my
fear of being replaced.
Why would I become exactly what I hate?
I wouldn't have done this at 8 years old,
but now I'm caving
in under the pressure of your strangle-hold arms.

I can't heal you,
or even my own big old bruise.
My world used to begin and end with you,
the ultimate Muse,
now that phantasm disappeared, I'm alone
(even in this city, I have no real home).
Rain drips from the roof,
tapping me on the shoulder,
reminds me just because I'm older
doesn't mean I became any tougher.
What would hurt me then
STILL WILL HURT ME NOW.

I wonder if what you say isn't what you mean,
but a backhanded, lame ass attempt at comforting
and shutting up
the growls coming guttural out of my gut,
to bathe in the juices of my hungry, hungry cunt.
The only thing I knew to say was, "I love you."
I told you that I did, trying to kid myself
into believing (the man-perfected, all pervasive)
"your hard cock means you love me,
if not then I'm ugly."

The whole fucking thing was a sham,
product of a bored imagination.
You are: a hot shell of aesthetic proportions;
I projected Prince Charming, a vivid, stunning
DISTORTION.
But now, that's over, this story has been told.

I never got your love.

Go back to the beginning and repeat,
when the music that you feed me
with rough, soft (piano) hands
comes to its last, limp beat,
I'll have to take another seat.

May-July 2010