a brief history of who i love

a brief history of who i love

late night phone call, and she
laughs, raspy like the smoker she isn’t
"sometimes i can't wait
you know?
one day there'll be - thanks to you -
a book. one day
i won't need memories
cause i'll have yours. and then
then they'll be ours"
they've always been ours
that's the beauty of it
(or on it. or maybe in it.)
i'm lying on my back on the floor
the carpet making my neck itch
but i won't move
not until i hang up
and even then, it won't be far
-roll over and reach for my notebook
i don't sleep much anymore.
ever.
and another laugh, lighter this time
"when you're famous - 'infamous
something we'll both be
darling
you deserve it'
and then i can feel her frustration
over the phone line
(cigarette smoke from outside the window
smells stronger,
just for a second)
"fuck you and your fucking
teen angst"
yes but, you see
'my teen angst is more fashionable than your teen angst'
ironic pop culture reference at its finest, kids
jot that one down for future reference
and this time the smoker's
laugh comes from ten feet below.

months ago we'd run
into each other on the ferry
screamed blue murder
i still remember the looks we got
hugged so hard i couldn't breathe
she'd liked my orange pants.
'only you could pull that off'
watching a poker game
dan neglecting to mention just how
good he is,
robbing some poor stranger man
blind
and i can't help but laugh at how
goddamn well he takes it
like a man, and you nod approvingly
when i tell you the next day.

-you're the documentarian.
the writer. i'm the
___ (it changes depending on who). you
watch people so well they
don't even realize you're
looking. that's why it's
you who's gonna keep
our memories-
a computer conversation from the
middle of the fucking
prairies at four o'clock in
the morning, and
i can hear the coyotes on the
edge of town. they
remind me of the ocean breeze
through the trees at home.
even here, i don't sleep.
not really.

another late night earlier
or maybe later - i can't ever seem to keep
these things sorted out
that same year (two years ago
already? christ.)
but this time we were in the park
and maybe it was a
different person with me, swinging.
we didn't have to worry about little
ones - they'd all been in bed for hours
instead, we were worried about
the kind of people
parents warn their kids about, never
actually explaining what
was wrong with the strangers, just the signs
to look for to identify
psychopaths. and by that time
we were displaying some of them ourselves anyway.
(dark clothing, dragged out makeup courtesy of
earlier that night.
the crimson lipstick was smeared on the back
of my hand by that point,
and i couldn't stop myself from singing
'rebel rebel' out of tune,
as she laughed at me)
so we didn't actually
know what we were looking out
for, in our sleepy neighbourhood playground,
when she turned to me and said,
quietly "sometimes
you remind me off him. you're so alike,
sometimes,
it's scary"
'we've been through a lot of the
same things.'
a long, sad look, the kind only people
trying so very hard to understand can give -
ridiculous, because none of it's bad,
really.
just hard sometimes. different from the status quo,
but that's the way i like things.
"does that make it any better?"
a rhetorical question, and i
answer anyways:
'makes it bearable'
teen angst, remember?

'he told me he thinks i should write a book,
about how fucked up he is,
because apparently he can't
-[i]can not[/i[- exist'
"bullshit."
i know, right.
"you should write a book about him
because you're in love with him.
you - i don't even know man -
you, like, fall in love with all of your
friends, or something"
or something, indeed
(in ancient greece, the teacher says,
the predominant relationship
was not that of romance,
but that of friendship between
a man and a man)
'we're practically the only language
with one word for
love' i tell him, laughing
as he realizes i'm not gonna hit him
for the 'man' after all.
'of course i love him, dude. i
love you, don't i?'
another rhetorical question,
and this one doesn't get
an answer, just a guilty
grin before the topic changes
again.

you smell like green,
i'm told one day.
remember, how colours
have flavours? well, you're
green. i always liked
blue best
(my favourite flavour, cherry red)
but green was up there, too.
i smile at you and ask
if that means the tattoo you're getting
will be blue and green,
then.
"fuck, dude. can you imagine how
fucking awesome it would be
if it smelled, too? a fucking scratch'n'sniff tattoo.
imma get a fucking patent for that!"
i try to actually sleep properly that
night, and end up tangled in
blankets, wide awake. i think
about needles, and how
badly i want a tattoo, despite
my lifelong fear of them.
i had blood transfusions when
i was a newborn, and so
i've always had to have tests done.
make sure they didn't
accidentally make
me sick
i fall in love with my friends and i smell like green,
but i want something to
show that my body belongs to
me.
i've had a stranger's blood in my veins
since the day i was born
something that i can write about
to explain later.
a memory that gets shared,
like the way i identify
myself through the people around
me.
always have. always will.

and later,
in our infamy, do you
think that we will all
look back at this
as one of our first memories?
i'm sitting typing this as the rain
beats on the window, and
the moon and the tree outside
are making horror-movie (the kind
we love to watch) silhouettes on my curtain
and my bad
shoulder is seizing up again,
and i want desperately to share it
with you.

hey i like this
but it doesn't quite read as a poem
but good imagery (Y)