Posted by marko on 11/12/2006, 10:21 am i have a telephone book four years old. i used to get a new one i don’t suppose it makes much difference. in a way i prefer it. i can find numbers & addresses of women who have disappeared. i take this as a sign. though i already have more signs than i know when i’ve had too much vineyard i write on my skin with indelible i write obsessively, compulsively, convulsively. i seldom return to i wrote a letter to e. once that was full of rhetorical questions. i i believe the older women get, the more they look for security over i can’t remember ever being told no before. e. was everything i wanted. everything i looked for in a woman. during this period i was determined to divest myself of all holdings. i suppose i was grasping at straws, whilei was secretly holding on it had gained control. i could only undo so much damage. i scratched i could no longer stand the sound of my own voice. the last time i talked to a. was a brief terse exchange. i’m not the next day i felt devastated. so angry at myself. i tried every
65.167.39.195
"two women"
every fall. but i moved. i have the same phone number though,
one i’ve had for fifteen years. i live in an apartment building.
apparently someone else is picking them up or i’ve been forgotten.
i’ll resist the temptation of slipping in a metaphor here.
i can look myself up & i’m no longer here. i liked it much better
there.
well, not exactly disappeared. but this is how i’m incapable of
remembering. who have changed their phone numbers, addresses,
in some cases names. i dial them anyway. i have them underlined.
they’ve been passed on to another, or else i get a recoding telling
me the number you’re trying to reach is no longer in service. they
ask me if i need assistance to dial the operator. but i don’t feel up
to any conversation.
what to do with. nevertheless i write them down. writing helps me
remember. i stare down at the page waiting for something to rise.
often i’d as soon forget, but have gotten into a habit that i seem to
have trouble erasing from my habits. i could close my eyes & see
these words as well.
ink. sometimes i’m not too cinched to lay it down correctly. so that
i can read it every time i look in the medicine cabinet mirror. i’m not
so sure if i need these reminders later. but they’ll wash off after a
couple showers anyway. i stand shivering for a few strays letters. i
fill in the blanks. it’s difficult to remember where i was going with it.
eventually there will be no words left. i’ll feel relieved. yet i know
i’ll do it again.
what i’ve written. i once asked a girlfriend to give me back all the
letters & notes i’d written to her. i had no right to ask this. she told
me she couldn’t recall where she’d put them. she was lying because
she lived in a small, efficiency. so either she didn’t want to part with
the past, or she’d thrown them away. i see this as gray area, though
it’s nothing of the kind. only in my own reasoning.
didn’t think of it as playing it safe. i rarely do. unless i’m biting
down hard on my tongue or scribbling on my hand—i’m liable to
blurt out anything. this was once considered an endearing quality.
now it’s a liability. it’s another sign that i have no eye for the future.
it’s funny how time twists the results around to confuse us.
kicks. i could be wrong. the more they seek a man who will provide
& act in somewhat consistent manner. it took me some time to realize
this. i thought i understood women better than i actually do. sometimes
i get over-confident. it took a couple no thank you’s from the female
to drill this into my head.
perhaps everything i needed also. a cliché i know, but there’s no
denying the facts were there in juicy colors dripping down our thighs.
it was a love you madly crush like i hadn’t experienced in twenty years.
unfortunately it coincided with the worst meltdown i’d had in two
decades. but it had nothing to do with timing. i’ve convinced myself
of this. i’m good at this.
it almost felt heroic. i’m still not sure if it was or wasn’t. that gray
area again.
for dear life. i had cut them all short. there was no way to win. i
became argumentative, confrontational, over the most insignificant
matters. i had become embedded in that part of my personality
that only occasionally would rear its ugly head. in fact, it’s been
almost completely eradicated now.
out one sentence after another. i assumed that in the endless stream
of words i’d find something that would explain it all. that would
make things right. i tried prayer & non sequiturs. i tried poetry &
heartfelt confessions. it all felt contrived.
sure what i tripped it off with, since i was stewed past reliable
memory. yet i remember her response. a quick—well, ok then.
then nothing but a dead line. that was it. so i threw down some
ugly words before proceeding to destroy all information. i wanted
to make sure she’d never existed. that she’d never penetrated my
hard-shelled reality. phone number, which i never can remember,
address, e-mails i’d saved. it’s all lost. that’s how i refer to it
now. in one dark slash she was gone.
possible ways to reapply myself to her existence. eventually i
found her e-mail. nothing more. she’s never answered one of
my messages since. i understand why. this doesn’t make take
away the sting. this doesn’t insure i won’t do it again. this is
no consolation.
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