and suddenly
the highway became very dark and it was only the
guardrails and the trees' sillhouettes that
differentiated us from a black-but-more-orange sky
it was halfway between rapture and that
muffled feeling of complete black-swalliowing-your-eyes
and your hands reach out for
and come back with
something other than feaseable matter
something other than a happily ever after
someone saw me carving your name into bark
& asked me why i had to hurt the tree-
handing me a piece of paper/proving why permanence is relative.
forget paper/paper wastes paper/i'll just write right on the bark when the mood strikes me right and
what about this whole walking thing, anyways?
now who the hell thought of that?
there should be some sort of a waiver before we put one foot in front of the other for the first time
that would make a little bit more sense
than any foolish nursery rhyme

i gave you me and
you give me this, the
object
of my affection

[objects in the mirror are
closer than they appear and
you're appearing awfully close right now, so
close,
in fact,
i'm having trouble breathing. anything. but you.]

and me? i'm just another
dead poet
in society
words in my viens instead of blood, i
know this because when they seep from my pen
they are red

and this could be any lifetime original series or
any made-for-TV movie
or even a commercial for something stupid like

produce.
or lampshades.
or... unrequited love.

but getting back to the produce;
i rot when i am left out in the sun too long and
i am best eaten overripe
(interperet that any way you wish)
just don't fish for answers.

ask.

i live in a house that's 2.7 inches longer on the inside than it is on the
o u t
and that's. me. too.
but not of my own accord, oh no.
i was kicked
tumbling out of a walk-in closet
the kind i had growing up, the
kind i never kept clothes in

nobody told me that when i put one foot in front of the other for the first time out of there
i would fall in love with four consecutive people between august and september, not the least of which is you
so don't you dare think it's not
or that you don't shine so-the-fuck-bright that i can't make out your sillhouette against the sky.

& we're standing there, my
hand holding a bottle of poland spring and you're asking me,
"is this really brewed in poland?"
and i said,
"it's water, heather..."

and that was it.
that was the moment in which
i could find absolutely no reason whatsoever
not to tattoo your name all over my body, i
wanted it written in big red letters across my chest so i could say that

technichally we were lying in bed together, you on top of me, even if only-in-theory.

and that was when my hand reached out for
and came back with

& i am floating like a shadow above the concrete
connected to the ground at my ankles or wherever
my body
touches
the ground

& i am staring at a sky where the stars have been blotted out
as if ink had been spilt over them

& i dont' fall in love
so much as i just
fall.

11/25/2002

Author's Note: howcome unrequited love isn't a subject matter option?

Posted on 11/26/2002
Copyright © 2024 Brynn Dizack