fade to black

and like the cat i have nine times to die.

His things are still there-- in the apartment over the Laundromat. His toothbrush is still sitting next to the sink. His clothes are heaped in a pile beside the bed, hanging over the edge of his laundry basket. Nothing is missing. Nothing stands out as being terribly wrong at first glance. There's a scrap of sketch paper sitting on the kitchen table, beside a half-full bowl of frosted flakes. It could be a grocery list. His handwriting is sloping, cramped and spidery. 

there are a few things that must be said before they die on my tongue and choke me with their ash.

. fuck you.  i didn't need you anyway.  health and happiness and a broken, bleeding heart.  suppose i could wish less for you.

. she misses you because i'm here now.  but i'm here now.  let her miss.

. fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

. i miss you.

. i meant what i said.


choose the one that is yours.  you might be right.






happy new year.

(private entry) 

this is more like it.  i feel as though my pendulum has finally stopped its mad swing between hollow darkness and blinding happiness and i can slip again into my own, comfortable skin.  there are no knives to my wrists, no unfamiliar, hollow aches begging to be filled.  neither are there pledges of devotion to all-too-human men, friends as they may be.

i painted today in red and black and gold.  and i didn't think about denmark or the laundromat or the care package that chrissy has sent me, with its little rattling bottles.






i wonder if the record store has a security camera.

(private entry)

not everyone hates me.

this is absolutely shocking to me.

i went to see victor today.  victor.  victor.  i could draw little hearts around that name and sleep with it under my pillow.  not like that.  victor is not a lover.  victor is a savior.  victor is the name i will pray to in the absence of diety or grace.  

i have had half a bottle of wine and some caffine and the best kiss in the history of mankind.

not with victor.  no.

something occurred to me.  i have been feeding off of the emptiness of people.  the emptiness of nico.  of anais.  i have been gorging myself on nothingness, and am full of it.  my soul was bloated and obscene with nothing, and it was dying of malnutrition.  but then i went to see victor.  victor is the one person in this whole god-forsaken compound that didn't hate me.  that didn't have a reason to.  he listened to me.  he actually listened.  and i purged myself of all of my nothing-- not into him.  no. i would never do that to him.  instead, it was he who gave to me something to fill the space that had been claimed by emptiness.  by bloated, awful emptiness.

now i have something.

have i mentioned that i had half a bottle of wine and the best kiss in the history of mankind?

i couldn't sit still when we returned from our hike.  i wandered icaria, but not like a prowling, feral dog.  i wandered icaria so that i could feel it.  everything.

i ran into nico in front of the coffee shop.  we actually had a conversation that didn't contain blood or tears or lies or invisible threats.  we spoke face to face.  he's leaving.  leaving leaving leaving and i'm so glad.  he will be away from me and i will be away from him and at last i can finally breathe.  at last i can feel like whatever power is driving nico and i mercilessly together is leaving us at peace.  i warned him to be careful.  i warned him about me, really.  i don't know who i'll be when he comes back, so i warned him.

On ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur, l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.  even if it is nothing. i wonder if he understood.

but the kiss.  the kiss.  charlotte told him to stay away from me, but charlotte be damned.  our conversation in the coffee shop was pure and unblemished, fit for sacrifice.  and when i left, nico followed.  he met me beneath a streetlight and told me goodbye.  and he kissed me.  and then i kissed him. and he kissed back.  and it was real and it was new and it was the type of kiss that romantics dream about.

nico and i are not finished.  we are only to begin anew, scarred, but unbroken.







tonight is good.  please, please, let tomorrow be the same.  please, don't let this light blow out.  i'm so afraid of the dark.

(private entry)

from time to time, i wonder if i'm all myself: if i'm not actually split into a handfull of different people.  one of the sure signs you don't have dissociative identity disorder is wondering if you have dissociative identity disorder, so i can rest in peace.  pieces.

i feel so numb.  it's ironic that i've spent so much time taking pills to shut myself off, when it turns out that all i needed was eupheme.  this fucked-up merry-go-round of emotions (or the lack thereof).

and by "eupheme," i mean, of course, "nico machiavelli."

when i came here, i wasn't this shell.  this hollow man.  and then that night.  lights flashing red.  too many questions.  and the horrifying realization that i gave a shit what happened to him, even if it was only because i didn't want his death on my conscience.  the lines gouged in my arms-- a last, desperate attempt to feel something before i let it all slip away.

that day in the hospital, it frightened me that his eyes were so dead.  now i look in the mirror and i see the same.  i've stopped living for pleasure and started living for pain.  not mine.  i live for the pain of others-- to manipulate it.  to twist it into something sick that i can own.  to tangle my fingers in their puppet strings and watch them writhe for me.

but every time i see him, it's a roll of the dice.  what will i be?  friend?  lover?  enemy?  preditor?  prey?  perhaps that's where the addiction lies-- to see which part of my broken self will rise beneath him.  

round and round we go.

didn't sleep after baseball and blowbacks. stayed awake to prove i could. got in my car and drove and drove and drove on my second wind.

they have a internet cafe here. it's supposed to be a dollar every fifteen minutes if you buy something at the cafe, but i smiled at the sweet girl behind the counter and she gave me free access. to the computer. and a latte.

maybe she knows where the fuck i am. i don't.

it's snowing.





i'll be damned.

i made a poppet out of wax and blood and gave it a nickel for its head. i made it a staff of paper and melted a perfect hole where its heart would be. it didn't flinch. it kept its grim smile even as its life melted out of its back.

the moon is high, perfectly round.
it has a silver halo in
the hazy sky. here on the ground,

i squint my eyes to see through thin
cracks in the blinds. the moon is split
in two from here. a bit of thin

plastic cuts a razor slit
across the center. sliced in two--
celestial and imperfect. fits

my melancholy, wistful mood
tonight. i sit here in the dark,
staring out at that high moon,

wishing now, with all my heart,
to worship it like pagans did.
to slip into the slient, dark

night, where no pale slice is hid
from that round whole, and let it fill
me with its silver, haloed, frigid

light.

my god my god. what have i done?

my head is odd. too much drinking last night. when i woke up, i half expected a goddess to pop out fully formed. it was nothing that couldn't be cured by a handful of Chrissy's little bodyguards-- what one pill can do, six can do better.

i am not a bad person. (i steal from the sick and seduce the downtrodden.) but in a world where we are all level, what makes it wrong to soothe my pains with someone else's remedy? and is my love not making the world a better place? is my body not a remedy itself?

i can't remember my hands.

i love painting when i'm like this. it's as though i'm watching someone else. i have the ideas, then send my hands to execute those ideas, but they are independent. my hands select the blue. the black. my mind merely observes.

eupheme is molding to me nicely. it is a fawnskin glove on my fingers. (too much an artist, gabriel.) i've met people. souls. some, I've just seen and smiled to. some I have actually spoken to-- planted infant seedlings of friendship. there is a poet-- a fine one with a broken heart that confuses me with its mirrors. and a boy with dark eyes and a crooked crown.

eupheme is one of the more beautiful places in this world. the landscaping is well too.

my mind wanders. my fingers itch. the skin is too tight. they demand a brush, perfect blue, and a crooked crown.








friends, foes, and undiscovereds, my heart is open. drink, fair world.

i am born again,
into a place that may not be
as prepared as it might.
i open my blind eyes
and the whole world waits
to hear
me
scream.


welcome to eupheme.