11.01.03 - 5:00

the red cross sponsors bullfights, how much does the irony weigh, i wondered.

part of a ripped, weathered transfer, a small red paperclip, a creased plastic bandage still in its waxed paper. a slim package of purple tape flags, an old bart pass, still crisp, but all used up. a library receipt, books read and returned months ago. these are the things clinging to the edges of the smushed package of white ticky-tack, where sticky bits peek out underneath the thin plastic wrapping. pieces of life that lay forgotten, unfeeling, until they are found and reclaimed and discarded as a matter of course.

she said she loved me and then she said she hated me and i could hear the blood rushing through her veins, hard and fast, so loudly that i could barely hear the words she spoke. her words were tumbling over themselves and i was chewing on a popsicle stick, driving tiny splinters into my tongue. i wanted to write a book about her but she didn't have a name and so i couldn't start. it's happened before, i had that feeling.

sometimes i listen to the same song over and over, for hours on end. i write aimlessly and leave out punctuation that should keep the time. i'm trying to empty myself of all the dead weight that fills my mind, fills my heart. sometimes the tears come and sometimes they don't but the difference is immaterial. i sleep, or i don't and nothing really seems to make a difference. i'm breathing so deeply that i'm filled up again before i'm empty. it's never good enough or it's never right. i'm not sure exactly what the distinction is.

he told me that she especially likes to end with a sentence that "means something." how do you know when it means something, i wondered. he said she used them often and to great effect. i pictured these meaningful sentences, lined up like racehorses, each with its head up, proudly, patiently waiting its turn. she always has one and i was jealous for a minute but then i didn't care again and the heat of that sudden envy was so lovely compared to the numb empty feeling that's become so familiar to me.

he walked around all night with a cigarette drooping from his lips. it was a menthol. he didn't smoke, he just wanted to hold it there and suck in the taste of it, some strange minty tobacco flavor, i imagined. the best times pass in silence and the best memories are only imaginary. i'm so tired, i told him. he looked at me with this look on his face, suddenly ten years older than he'd been the moment before. all the bad things are gone, he told me. all the good things are here. i laughed and answered, we're going where there's no depression, right? he smiled and i'm not sure if he got the reference (did he get the reference?) but i didn't want to explain and there was silence again. silence, silence, more silence, there's always silence left behind after everything worth saying has already been said.

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