The Fire

The fire comes in the night, but this fire is not the kind with orange flames that bite or the flickering light with blue tips that seeks out flesh and wood and hair to eat. This fire is a storm of the mind. A rampage of heat and sparks where surely every firefighter in the state would rush to with their hoses drawn and their red hats glistening under the moon, if only their sirens would blare, if only the operators were alerted and the trucks sent on their way, if only they could feel her inner heat, the inner flames, the house consumed and crumbling, the tall-as-tree flames that course through her body like a forest fire without limits, as though the wind itself where the conspirator, the ally of the wild with only one goal, the hope for conquest, land, and blackened earth. The flames move to devour, to travel far and wide, before the helicopters come with their retardant powders, before the husky men show up with hard cocks and heavy jackets. And she wishes she could rely on some saviors in hardhats, but all that comes is the sound of owl wings bating in the night and the tree leaves that rustle in the glory of minute feathered vibrations.
Beneath lenses of red and orange, she watches the black cloaked trees. The floor under her feet is cold, and as she stands, staring out the tall window beside her bed, she simultaneously soaks in the silence of the night and hears the crinkling of flesh turning to ash. The tree limbs sway softly in the cold hours before dawn. She, in her long white nightgown, she looks out the open blinds, as though watching a lit spectacle, the flames inside cover the irises of her eyeballs and even though she stands perfectly still, her body stiff as a statue, inside she is ablaze, watching the forest outside like a prisoner watches cars speeding past a barred window.
The thought jabs, she feels it prickling the stillness of her pose. She feels the knife poking through the flames. Cutting through the moving blades of red, orange, and blue. Like thunder in the middle of a calm night, she looks to her right, to the man asleep on the bed, his arms cradling a soft pillow. She looks at him, at the only home she knows, the castle comprised of human flesh, the guardian of her life. He is without armor, without a metal helmet or even a sword by his side. He sleeps, unguarded, his thoughts lost in a dream of sugar and death, watching as flowers blossom into stiff armies advancing upon the gates of a desert. He, her home. Softly breathing, his heat almost strong enough to arm her cold feet and chilled shoulders.
And the thunder roars, and it rips her attention, takes it from his sleeping body and she turns again to the dark night, just outside the thin pane of glass and just beyond her hands’ ability to reach. Like a jab to her love, her eyes wander to the branches, swaying to unfelt wind that began in the arctic, began while they were still sunbathing and barbecuing. Her body feels the cold, her feet are numb against the wooden floor, but still, inside, it comes and the flames stay with her. Her body is cold and shivering, soon, it may collapse beneath the strain, but the fire inside mounts, the flames in her heart crackle in the night.

Quiet Afternoon

The young boy looked out the window, spreading the thick heavy curtains open with his sweaty palms, looking past the little balcony and out onto the building parking lot and the street beyond, for the second or third time that afternoon. It was sunny outside, just the perfect day to take the bicycle out and ride around the park like he used to do. But that would involve pulling the bike into the house, from the balcony where it sat, walking it through the living room, walking it out of the apartment while holding the door open, making sure the front door was closed tightly and double locked, walking to the little elevator and riding it all the way down to the street level, which was only two floors below, then walking it to the sidewalk and then finally sitting on it and beginning to ride, then he would have to do the whole process in reverse when he came back and maybe somewhere in there he would have to call his mother to let her know that he was going out, or that he would be back soon, or that he was ok, or something, just anything to record in her voice mail in case she checked it before he came back, which was probably unlikely, but he would have to do it, just in case. The thought of riding around, out there in the wide open green and brown park, seemed like a distant promise, something that could happen in other days, maybe in the past, maybe in the future, just not something that happened today, because today he walked back to the couch and turned on the TV with the remote control, and sipped at the large glass full of Coke on the side table and glanced sideways at the books on the little bookshelf his father had given him so many years ago, back when things seemed newer and sunny days were precious and unique. Maybe he could read today, and maybe then he would be someone else, somewhere else, in India, in the desert, in the mountains, in outer space, in the depths of an ancient castle, in a dark forest, anywhere but here, just a block away from the park, the green and brown park which spread like a living labyrinth away from his window, now once again covered by heavy curtains which only barely moved with the breeze.
But that one block was just too far, the effort involved seemed too insurmountable, and right this very moment, on the TV screen, there were some women dancing in short skirts to a loud thumping music full of bass and guttural grunts, and the park was even further away and the TV screen was right here, right in front of his eyes. He looked up at the clock to make sure his mother wouldn’t be arriving any time soon. He unzipped his pants and pulled them down slightly and he started to masturbate slowly as he watched the women dancing to the syncopated beat. Sometimes the camera would zoom underneath them and he could almost see their panties and their ass cheeks or just higher up their full smooth thighs and in one of those moments of close revelation, when it seemed that a particular girl was just too beautiful for his mind to comprehend, he started to orgasm and he had to stand up to make sure he didn’t stain his own pants, and the warm semen fell all over the dark rug, in tiny white drops that mostly disappeared into the rug’s thick texture. Soon, sooner than expected, the moment of ecstasy was over and he shrugged his shoulders and then pulled up his pants and buttoned them up, and he went to the kitchen to get a paper towel and he came back and cleaned the small mess on the rug. On the TV screen, the women were still dancing, as intensely as they had before. He felt like maybe he could masturbate again, and reach that fleeting moment of blind joy once again, and let it wash over him like a wave of silence that took away the endless white noise of the quiet apartment.
He walked once more towards the curtains and stared for a moment at the bike that rested against the metal bars of the balcony and he thought that it really was a perfect day to go out and ride but now it was too late, now the afternoon was getting old and he was feeling very tired, maybe if he hadn’t masturbated, then maybe he would have gone out, maybe just a moment ago it was still possible to open the glass doors and bring out the bike, but now the time for that had definitely passed and there was no way to recover it. So he walked back to the couch and sipped at the coke some more and soon he had unzipped his pants once again, thinking that he might as well, since he definitely was not going out, not anymore, and maybe he could read afterwards, and the women kept on dancing, and one of them stared at the camera in a way that made the boy picture her mouth right around his penis and he could only barely imagine how good that would feel. In a flash of pleasure, he exploded once again, and there was a lot less sperm this time, but he still stood up and he still cleaned it afterwards, at least as much as he could. Then he turned off the TV for a moment and he walked to the bookshelf and grabbed a book at random, and it was one that he had started to read several months ago, but he had never finished, in fact, he never got past the first chapter, so he brought it to the couch and leaned back and started to read. The first paragraph was good and then there was some description and then a bit of dialogue and it was all good but he was getting sleepy and the words were starting to dance before his eyes. His eyes closed and he let the book fall on his chest and that’s where he found it, a few hours later, when he woke up. He stood up, put the book away and walked back to the glass doors of the balcony and stared at the bicycle leaning against the rail, and out at the sunlit afternoon that was already getting very cool and very dark, and he knew that now it was definitely too late and maybe he could have still gone after the first time he had masturbated and maybe then he would have had enough strength but now it was definitely too late, and it was getting too cold and dark to be out riding around, and in a couple of hours his mom would be home and then he would eat and soon it would be time to sleep. Maybe another afternoon like this, maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, maybe in a moment of clear decision in a day that wasn’t so quiet, or so noisy, or so gray, or so bright, maybe he would open the curtains early, and see the bicycle outside and maybe he would go out and ride and let the sun shower him with golden warmth and maybe then he would not even call his mother because there was no need to, since she wouldn’t hear his message anyway, and then the shower of ecstasy would last for hours, and it would soak into his flesh and deep into his dreams, like invisible tentacles of heat that reach into places of unsuspected depth. Maybe that would happen soon. But today it was too late. He pulled the thick heavy curtains closed and he came back to the couch and turned on the TV with the remote control. New women were dancing, with even shorter skirts, but the song sounded the same. He looked up at the clock to see how soon his mother would be home. Maybe there was still time for another flash of blinding pleasure. It was too late to go out anyway.

Moving Day

It was the day to do it and there was no way around it. The sun was high up in the sky and the air was crackling slightly with a hint of cold, and it was the perfect day to go walking or riding and not the day to be sweating here at the apartment, lifting a heavy brown sofa and some chairs and trying to avoid being crushed by them as we pulled them down the steep stairway, and lifting them yet again onto the bed of the truck and managing to tie them with found rope and belts and bungee cords; this was definitely not the day for this, but there was no other day because today he was leaving and I didn’t really want him to go but there was no way around it and, back when we first sat in the living room and talked, back when he nodded his head in an attempt at friendly shyness, with his brown hair in a mess of half combed curls and his hands folded over his dirty ripped jeans, back when he was simply a nuisance that gave me a few laughs over breakfast and sometimes over dinner, if neither of us had a girl staying overnight, all the way back to that day when we talked and he told me that he was moving, that he had found the "one", whatever he meant by that, and he was going away and I just shrugged and said "cool" and nodded my head intending to show clear and unequivocal nonchalance, that day I also said, "well, when the day comes to move all your stuff out, I will help you…" and he said, "are you sure? I don’t want to be that big a hassle, it’s going to be a lot of stuff, you know, I’ve lived here longer than you have…" and when he said that I remembered the first day I showed up, when I came to be interviewed by this smiling little guy who was only a little older than me, and I tried to be serious and he saw me being serious and he offered me some pot and I smiled and hesitated, but then he nodded and squeezed his left eye in something that was not quite a wink, letting me know that it truly was ok to take it, and I did, and we sat on the same brown sofa, the same one where we sat when he told me he was leaving, and we sat there for hours smoking pot and telling old jokes and remembering old girlfriends and that very same day we became roommates and that very same day he told me he would do no further interviews, the whole process was over, and I was living there now, and I brought my stuff a few days later, and it was only a couple of bags and a few boxes, and he laughed at how little I had, and he pointed out how much stuff he had accumulated in the time that he had lived here, and he pointed out the two bikes and he told me I could use one whenever I wanted to, and one of the park trails started right across the street and we could go riding sometime, and in fact, we did, more than once, and we rode all over the park together for entire Saturdays of sunshine and sweat and we smoked pot in the living room every other night and we watched funny movies and made up our own punch lines when the movie just didn’t have enough laughs and we had little parties that sometimes turned into big parties and girls passed out on the same old sofa, the stained brown sofa, and sometimes the girls ended up in his bed and sometimes they ended up in mine, but no matter where they ended up, they would disappear by breakfast, and we were once again alone in the apartment and we were eating Cheerios while going over the details of the party from the night before, and he was shorter and skinnier than I was, but he was so much better at picking up girls that he would pick them up two or three at a time and give me the leftovers which were not bad at all, and we would laugh together later and slap our hands together over our heads and we would smoke some more pot, right on that brown sofa, which was in fact the sofa that was now tied up in the bed of the truck, with found rope and belts and bungee cords and I was standing behind the truck, calling to my friend, telling him how to move the truck, making sure he didn’t hit the walls or the parked cars, making sure he left safely, with his big brown sofa and his jokes and his girls and his easy breakfast and his crazy parties, all tied up behind his truck, all ready to go and never come back. As easily as he took me in, that’s how easily he would leave. And all I could do was help and smile and crack a few more jokes, before the time for laughter truly ended, and we quickly shifted from roommates to friends to acquaintances to names on a cell phone to vague memories of parties and pot and a brown sofa where we used to talk and laugh, a brown sofa which was now tied to the back of a black pickup truck. It was simply the day to do it and there was no way around it.

Wild Cats

Those lil’ kitties creep out from under the fence and bite- one, two, three! Gobbling mouthfuls of kibble gone soggy in the rain. Then they glance furtively up at me with bright blue eyes and dash back under the fence. One is littler, more delicate of build, and I think she must be the female and the other is getting a bit bigger, a tad huskier about the chest and can no longer fit under the same gaps that his sister does, so he must dart a little further to a bigger hole. There is a at least one more from their litter of orange crème-cicle kitties and this third is more weary than the other two, always rushing into the shadows long before I am near enough to get a good look.
There are other cats with them much of the time. Some big and fat and clearly domestic and others who may or may not be cared for by one who would call themselves their master. I have seen a striped cat and a black cat with them from time to time. I hear them at night either fighting or mating or both, yowling eerily like tortured babies in the ally between apartments.
They live under an industrial trash bin in the lot next to my building. In front of that gated lot, people from the surrounding neighborhood dump their rubbish, old mattresses, broken chairs, lamp shades, shoes toys and music boxes. My children have often speculated that the kittens are living beneath all of that rubbish, but now it is clear, even to them, that theses kittens turned cats live under the trash bin in the yard, because the debris comes and goes from week to week but the cats remain.
When they were small, I first noticed them running out of the garage at night when I came down to do laundry. The sight of them pleased me so that I brought them a saucer of milk. I don’t know whether they drank it or not, but the mounds of soggy cat food in front of the fence indicated that I was not their only admirer. No doubt they are viewed as both adorable and a scourge by the neighborhood as a whole.
Some will, like me, wish them well and hope that they have nice enough lives out there, and others will curse them when they find the dumpsters in the garage spilled upon the ground.
I like cats and because I do, most cats like me when we meet. I speak to them in cat tongue and this usually pleases them very well, because even if I have got the pronunciation all wrong, at least I have tried, whereas most people won’t.
The little alley cats, however, ignore my cat talk. They don’t care if I like them, they don’t like anyone that walks on two legs. They are wild cats with no desire to speak to stupid people like me. Their eyes are cold and unyielding, heartily disinterested as they wait behind the fence for me to pass out of their way, not caring what I say in English or in Cat. That is how I can tell that some of their companions do live or at least have lived with people, because when I pass by, some of these cats get together and say hello. The little wild cats care not at all, but the others look into my eye as if they understand me. Actually they look at me rather like children who are embarrassed that their old mother has come to speak to them while they are among their friends. They don’t want to be unkind or impolite but nor do they want to show the wild cats how domestic they are. So they look embarrassed and urge me to be on my way so that they can play with the wild kids.
It has started raining again and is very cold out, so now the alley cats must be huddled under the great industrial bin together, the three orange and white siblings all filled up on their wet food, and I am cold but dry while thinking of them, whereas they are not thinking of me at all, but rather visiting whatever plane it is that cats visit when they dream. I wish them happy hunting there, just as I wish it upon them here.

Walking Home

Younger Sister looked up to make sure that Older Sister was still there. They walked together through the busy intersection, Younger Sister only half a step behind. She looked down at Older Sister’s sneakers, as they rhythmically flapped against the pavement, and made sure to follow closely. When they reached the sidewalk, she looked up once again and saw that Older Sister was veering to the left. Younger Sister followed closely as always and she veered to the left in precisely the same way. Older Sister never turned around. She knew that Younger Sister was following. There was no need to check. The main large intersection was behind them and they now turned into the park, away from the loud noise of motors and horns, away from the crowd and into a frail world of bent branches and singing pigeons. Younger Sister was always grateful for these brief spaces when the pavement fell behind them and the world was once again full of color and simple light. The cars were still close enough to be heard, and, in fact, some cars still rolled right by them, their wheels screeching lightly on the asphalt, as they walked on the narrow trail of dirt that made its way through the giant city park. But it was just enough quiet, just enough green, to make her imagine that they had traveled far, together, Older Sister and her, and maybe now they would be part of some great adventure, something out of the little illustrated books that she collected, and maybe the cars would eventually disappear and there would only be the two of them, walking through the woods, the deep dark forest that went on for miles and miles, a forest they had never encountered, a forest they had never known. Maybe in the sudden realization that the world had changed, maybe then Older Sister would finally turn around and look at her and check to see if she was still there.
Meanwhile Younger Sister followed, like she had followed coming out of their mother’s womb, just ten minutes behind, but in those ten minutes was a lifetime, and now Older Sister had the crowds of friends around her and the many suitors all eager for a moment of her attention, for a flash of her brilliant eyes, which were so much like hers, yet so different, and she had the ears and eyes of their teachers, and the power to decide when to walk through the park, when to take the bus, when to make their way up the stone steps that lead to the lake, and Younger Sister would follow quietly, always making sure that Older Sister’s sneakers were still ahead of her, always looking up to see where she would turn.
It would take no more than ten minutes to cross the park, ten minutes to make their way through the shadows of the trees, and up and down the gentle curves of the dirt path, and across the quiet inner road, and down the slope and along the little stream and then back up through another dirt path and, by that time, the houses would be just a block away and the illusion of an endless dark forest would be finished. But in those ten minutes, Younger Sister could imagine that the path would go forever and maybe soon Older Sister would say to her "Here, this is where we should sit. Let’s sit here and talk." But of course Older Sister was just quiet, stepping with clear decision across the obstacles on her way, the little roots, the pebbles, the empty beer cans fading in the sun, and Little Sister was quiet as well, her eyes tightly focused on Older Sister’s sneakers as they stepped away in front of her.
As they made their way around the dirt path, Younger Sister saw a man’s foot sticking out of a parked car and she thought that she had seen this before. She then saw a couple laying beside each other on a white sheet and she hoped that someday she would be here with a beautiful boy that would cradle her in his arms and talk to her and tell her all the things that Older Sister would not say. She looked up to see if Older Sister had noticed the couple but she only looked straight ahead, certain of her route, impervious to any distractions. To their left was a stone bridge with arches of red brick and a woman making strange scratches on a large yellow paper. Little Sister wondered if this woman was also imagining this strange world of possibilities that opened up to her when the shadows of the trees fell on her and the loud sound of traffic faded into the past. She tried to look at the drawing that the woman was making, but she was too far away, and Older Sister would not stop. She wondered then what would happen if she just walked over and looked at the strange drawing and didn’t say anything at all. Would Older Sister just keep on crossing the street and never turn towards her? Would she just keep on walking until she was completely out of Little Sister’s sight? Would she turn around then? She felt the touch of temptation come across her, a surge of innocent lust that grew from her crotch and traveled up to her chest. She even made an initial gesture, a physical move to the right, just to see if Older Sister reacted, just to see if Older Sister did anything at all. But Older Sister just kept on walking and so did Younger Sister. It had only been an impulse and it was already a thing left behind.
It was only ten minutes across the park. It was only ten minutes of difference. But in those ten minutes there was an entire life, and in this life Older Sister lead, and Younger Sister followed. She looked up at Older Sister once again as they crossed the street, making sure that she was still there, making sure that they were still together and they quietly made their way back home.

A Moment To Be Alone

An hour was all he needed, maybe a half hour when there was too much work, maybe less if the calls were falling like leaves from the tree of endless complaints, the strange tree that he was meant to trim daily but was always overgrown by the time he returned. But an hour was what he really needed and what he hoped for in the long spaces where there was only a computer terminal, a phone and his own hands typing away at a keyboard, like endless little footsteps that go nowhere, nowhere at all and very fast, when the light was yellowish and fuzzy and the window was glazed over with the steam of the heater and the breath of the people that walked by and talked in whispers, because everyone had to be working, and he was too, and his mind was so deeply focused on the glaring computer screen that he could barely hear the sound of the people behind him, or the cars outside, or the radio in the assistant’s cubicle, turned down real low, which only made it travel further and find its way underneath his skin where it would reside for hours, even after he was long gone and there was no longer any radio there, or the sound of his boss talking loudly to another manager on the phone, going over the latest ball game, laughing loudly, his feet up on his desk, just a few steps away.
But if he had an hour, just an hour, with nobody around, then that made it all disappear as if by magic, it made things come back to a place where he could vaguely remember who he was, and why he was, or if it wasn’t really remembering, at least it was a kind of lucid imagination that could stand in for memory, and maybe it was better than real thoughts. Here in his car, alone among the trees and the birds and the joggers and all the other creatures that lived in the park, he could at last breath, and it would take him a full ten minutes to get his breathing down to a place where he could smell again, and then he could smell the leaves and the flowers and the leather seats of his brand new car that he only drove for a couple of hours each day, and the smell of his own sweaty skin which he now realized other people might smell as well, but maybe they were just as clogged up as he was and maybe they were just as compressed as he was and maybe they were just as lost as he was so maybe they would have no smell, no smell like he did, until he was alone, here in the car, and by that time there was nobody else around, so he could only smell the sweat of the joggers as they passed by but nobody could smell him, and it was so beautiful that, for that moment, the smells were like a symphony of aromas and all the different aromas fit in so perfectly that he wouldn’t have rejected any one, not even the most noxious, not even the black smoke that trailed through the branches from the trucks that passed by on the main road just a block away, not even the putrid urine fumes that came from the homeless man that slid his way from one nowhere to another, sliding close to all cars, maybe hoping one would be open and a gold watch would be inside, or at least some change. He wouldn’t trade any of them, not at all, because they all added up to a kind of silence, a silence that drove into him through his nose and filled his lungs with delight and calm ecstasy and soon, after another ten minutes had passed, he would be smiling and his face felt strange for a moment, as if doing a strange acrobatic move that it wasn't accustomed to and then he would know that it was only a smile and it was all ok, at least for now.
It was only then that he would lean his seat back, all the way back so that his face would be looking up at the roof of the brand new car and then he would throw caution to the wind, and set aside all worries of who might see him or who might not, or what they may think or what they may not, and then he pushed his feet outside the window and he opened his mouth wide and swallowed the air like heavy food that would sustain him and then he yawned so powerfully that his whole body trembled, and even the car might have shaken a bit like a horse shaking beneath the weight of its master. Then he was smiling broadly and he knew that he had what he wanted, what he truly needed, the only thing he really asked for: a small moment to be alone, here in the park, in the middle of the trees and the birds and the joggers, just a few blocks away from the building where the computer terminal still waited for his return.
Ten more minutes and the sounds would begin to pulse through him, the footsteps outside, the songs that slid like silver necklaces enchanted by wizardry through the latticework of the thin branches above him, his own breathing which by now had become slow and heavy and then he could feel himself release even further and the sounds had become a drone and the drone was the street itself and the car was still and quiet but for him it was all moving and that movement signified that he was travelling, and he was further than anyone could suspect and the trees gyrated in the window and the window itself gyrated and then he closed his eyes and there was only darkness and the sound of teardrops falling on a vast pool of dark oily water. He stood alone, wet up to his ankles, and the noise of the cars driving by his own parked car were like waves, and the songs of the birds were like flashes of thin lightning across the infinite blackness of the sky and here he was truly alone, and this is all he needed, this is all he wanted. Soon he would be ready to return and the people could keep on whispering and the radio could keep on making its trebly soft complaints and the boss could keep on talking loudly onto the phone. After a moment such as this, he could take another afternoon, maybe another morning, just as long as he got an hour, maybe a half hour sometimes, but ideally an hour. That was all he really needed.

Memory

Black oil dripping like sticky medicine from the tapered glass cylinder of a bottle dropper. It is soap? Is it blood? No, it is memory bubbling forth from the deep recess pushing up from underneath and cracking the brittle earth at the surface. I thought I had buried you where none would find you, but alas, I find you because you are buried within me. In the fresh green fragrance pressed from the leaves of a tender plant by searching fingers, I draw the smoky outline that is a recollection, and one leads to another under the gentle caress of late winter sun until an entire scene unfolds and rises like the pages of a pop up story book. My heart hurts as if it has been stapled together by a child, my paper heart splitting at the center because it has been over stuffed with cloudy cotton from a stained pillow, and on it is written,
"Here is a heart since you obviously don’t have one."
It spills out onto the dark umber of moist earth amid a scattering of small brittle leaves and the tiny delicate remains of baby snails who by some twist of fate could no longer use that creamy colored spiral shell which never gained it’s mature color. The quiet is like the sound of nothingness one hears when they press their ear to the mouth of a blue glass bottle; a hollow "shhhh". It drops from the tree tops adorned with adobe bells that hang still and silent. The long slender branches of the tree are thrown up like white arms reaching for the birds that didn’t come this morning, its leaves splotched and puckered with disease.
"Shhh"
I can hear the beat of my heart in this quiet; the small insignificant sound of paper tearing, s l o w l y. The characters rise from the depths. Blue eyes, red hair, that I want to touch, to either caress or strangle. Brown eyes, tangled black hair that I want to watch or get as far away from as possible, like a woman teetering on a table top to escape a greasy glowering eyed sewer rat. A beard and a shouting voice which makes every semblance of control shut down as if someone turned the web shaped spicket so tight that not a drop of reason, civility or water can come through, and some one let the bear out of her cage and she’s looking to eat the trainer, no matter how hard he whips, the harder the better to make her bite. Ooooh the things that we drag out the back door on a moonless light to heave into a shallow grave dug with a simple black spade. How they creep back out later, sneaking through the cracks under doors and crawling along in dark hallways that don’t appear in the floor plan.
Poor bear, poor brother, poor sister, poor father. All in unmarked mounds, moaning to be released. And I finger my paper heart, and wonder who gave it to me, what mean child made it so poorly that I will have to make another from these things. I wait like a bounty hunter for each of those apparitions that come to feed on my raw attention. I pounce when they arrive and with silver dagger stay their appetite and take from them my trophy so that I may fashion for myself a new heart of the rendered parts of each and fill it with black medicine and pump it by hand. I cross over the ashy pit where I let my old heart burn, plucked from my breast and set aflame with an empty lighter that looked like hard green candy.
The silent unmoving oxygen fed the frenzy and the fire licked my old paper heart like a hungry little demon sucking at the bloody chambers of a pomegranate until only feathery white and gray ash remained. Then I crossed it, and hoped to die, and sprinkled a handful of seeds here, there and everywhere and call the birds to come. Come bring your song to fill up my new monster’s heart fashioned from the cadavers of ghosts. See how stretchy it is, made of ghost flesh. See how empty of fluff.
Bring your noise and let the flapping of your wings bring the wind. Let the wind ring the little adobe bells as you come down upon pale uplifted arms. Bring the crow, the sparrow, and the lark and let us make a joyful noise to release the spirits of my slain brethren. Black oil dripping like sticky medicine from the tapered glass cylinder of a bottle dropper. It is soap? Is it blood? No, it is the music I make, boiling away the remnants of a life left behind into glossy midnight hued bubbles in the black cauldron of a lonesome self.