holiday in hiroshima

the days are turning into a collection of breaths. a subtle torture lurks ont he faces of the people around me. everyone is behaving as if a great weight has fallen on them: i miss you. i am sitting on a friends couch, tired from the day, watching bad movies in dim light, and i have seen all of this before. i am sitting in a pit of deja vu instances, memories unmade, brightened days, sleepy eyes, wandering hands, a sea of complex stares, heat from between legs, sighs, loneliness. this is the world where we have made our home. this is the home where we have made our world. i am trying to think of the phone number of a friend of mine i was supposed to call yesterday, but i am horrible with numbers, the prefix eludes me. my mind is a collage of area codes, even numbers, prime numbers, odd numbers: i see patterns but nothing concrete, nothing dialable, nothing sensational, only more numbers, rolling around. i am living the life of a bingo junky in my mind.

i am dialing a number that might be it, a woman's voice answers.

"karen?"

"no."

"is karen there?"

"i don't know anyone named karen."

"i am bad with phone numbers, i appologize."

"it's okay. bye"

"bye."

this conversation, though breif leaves me feeling empty, unsatisfied. i am trying a few more numbers but they are no good either. disconnected, fax line, wrong state. my eyes are tired. i am rolling my head back onto the couch, my eyes are closing, i am falling asleep. i am not looking forward to the drive home. i fumble around in my jacket pocket for a cigarette, lean it into my mouth and light it with the bic i comondeered for personal use from the coffee table. the frist drag is always my favorite. i have a half-finished beer next to me, but it seems a moot point. i am drunk. the movie we are watching has some basic 80's television movie plot, easy to follow, but somehow i am lost. i have no idea what is going on anywhere. i have the taste of metal in my mouth. my nose is bleeding. i'm sitting here with a rag over my face, trying to smoke this cigarette (just now, it is the best part of my life: i am in love with it) but i keep getting images of myself, clumsy, dropping the cigarette, trying to lean the rag holding back my bleeding nose from my mouth just out of the way so i can gather the cancer that is rightfully mine.

there are all manner of cancer within me. love is a cancer. fear is a cancer. fatigue is a cancer. i am feeling guilty for leaving my lungs out. thinking about all of this makes me laugh, and everyone in the room turns to look at me sideways.

"what are you laughing about?"

"nothing. i was just thinking of something funny."

"what?"

"it's hard to explain."

suddenly, i can feel the blood pumping through my veins, a river of life and lasting: i could live forever, i need only discover the trick to keeping this river in motion. what doesn't move doesn't grow. what doesn't grow, dies. death bores me. i am happy here, just now, like this, a rag to my face, a half smoked cigarette in my mouth, a smile creeping out. my phone rings. you are calling me. i answer, even knowing my battery is low, it could die at any moment. it is good to hear your voice. i'm asking you to call me back tommorrow, but thinking you probably won't. you say you will, say goodbye, and hang up. i set the phone down and realize my nose bleed has stopped. i throw the rag away and stand to get another beer. not a bad night really, all things considered. i lose itnerest in it not long after i open it. i am ready for bed. ready for slumbers, dreams, lucidity. i get up and carry my bottles to the garbage can and turn to say goodnight. everyone is asleep. i open the door slowly, to avoid the creak it sometimes makes and step through it, ready to descend the staircase and get in my car for the short short drive home.

my life has a been collection of drives: short, long, loud, peaceful, sometimes frightening. i am home before i realize it, and i get out and stumble inside. tonight has been another in a long series of letters unwritten. things that should have been said somewhere to someone, and yet weren't. i am too tired to think about all of this. i lay down still dressed and fall asleep.

2004-04-01 | 1:19 p.m.
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