Month: February 2015

Sex costs. First, there are the drinks. You don’t know him too well. Actually, you’re still not sure you like him, but you’d like something. You keep hoping to feel happy. Like you’d planned. Another red might help.

Then there’s the taxi. ‘We can split it,’ you say, still not knowing whether it’s sex you’re going for. He is.

You’re kissing in his kitchen, his face in your neck, his hand pushing down into your jeans. The compliments help. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ he whispers. As you walk up behind him you remind yourself that life, after all, is for living.

He presses you down onto the bed. He pulls your bra up over your head, undresses himself with one hand. He’s shaking. He’s ready. Are you?…

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The man parted the bushes and limped out onto the road. A chunky wind of dirt and sand blew across his face, mixing with the faint plume of his breath.  He pulled his scarf up over his mouth and nose and adjusted his goggles.  He looked both ways; the desolation seemed to stretch on forever. He took out his old pistol and held it ready before crossing the street.  The convenient store was nothing more than a burned-out wooden frame with broken windows. Weeds were growing in the open doorway and he crushed them down with his boot.  A skinny rat scurried along the wall and disappeared behind the counter where the clerk would have sat.

With his pistol still raised he started inspecting each shelf for food. …

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Eight old men are dying behind a curtain in Brendan’s hospital ward.  What they’re dying of I can’t say.  But they’re dying.  You can smell it.  Sometimes I go over and talk to them, but they never say anything back.  I go anyway, because I can’t just sit here and stare at Brendan all day.  It’s too boring.

Right now I’m on Brendan’s side of the curtain.  Like the song that says whose suicide are you on?  I’m on Brendan’s.  And he is a suicide.  Well, almost a suicide.  The doctor told us he took a very bad beating and drank a lot of Drano and that he’s going to be comatose for a while.  He doesn’t know if Brendan got beat up and then drank the Drano, or if he drank the Drano and then got beat up.  …

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The ghosts she did not know
 Tinged her days, sepia shaded longing
Sadness touching upon celebrations
 Cooling the edges, chilling
 her laughter

The ghosts she did not know
  Painted her moments, washing her walls
 Their shadowy silhouettes hanging
 Among family portraits
 Photos of before or now lined the walls, never then 

She looked into the eyes of her grandmother
Grandfather, uncle, aunts
 Days, years, months before, lightness, light
 Family she’d never meet
 Or know
 She looked at their mouths, soft
 Their hands, open
 Their bellies, full
 Her parents never spoke of what happened
 Only these three photos remained, hung
 Silent

Walking the hall she struggled to capture their voices
 Their words, alert to prick their whisperings
 She could sense their muffled background rumblings

Standing before their faces she could feel the rise
 Their anger stirring, her hatred mounting, stomach rolling
 Her family had been taken
 Ripped from all they’d known, stripped
 Down to nothing, nothing but flesh and bones
 Their bodies burned
 The dust of their debris covering everything, falling
 Still 

She moved to Papa and Mama’s portrait, young then, before
A spring dance, lace, chiffon
 Laughter filling their faces, spilling easily into gentle bodies
 Ghosts she did not know
 She smiled, a bit
 Mama’s hand gently touched Papa’s clean-shaven cheek
 Her wrist soft, clean
 Their numbers inked
 Embedded into flesh
 Stained
 Always covered now, her body shook, on guard with prickling
 Her covering would slip in moments, exposed
 Fear and shame contorting Mama’s face, always fear now
 She longed to touch their mark 

She turned to Grandmother’s portrait
She he had her Grandmother’s eyes
 Spoken, this brought stinging to Mama
 She looked deeply, her eyes
 She pressed her nose upon the glass, cold
 Dust stirred
 The barrier between then and now
 How could they share eyes
 When she’d never seen the horrors?…

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