the cymbal's song of it

THE CYMBAL'S SONG OF IT

there's the scent of freshly peeled orange slices, the small kind you share with friends, not for juicing. it's such a clear and clean smell that you suddenly become aware of how unclean everything else smells. 

i wonder how someone like me could ever like someone like you. 

like you

like me

like you

like me

like you

you like me like you like me.

i tape my brain back together. i'm very remodeled, very retrofitted for such things. 

there's that name in the air. it smells of nothing, yet roses and everything and at once i'm aware of how awful everything else is. i'm quite hopeless about these things, if you want to know the truth. about you and about me. 

this is a room for nothing. it is rich, and you are sitting here as an installation that still, i would maybe long to gaze at, if i could will my eyes to. within these plain walls all i crave is the color you bring. and you brought your eyes, your lips, yourself. i have nobody to call. i brought flowers to lay behind you. 

the familiar grief i carry, i open it for popular strangers who forget my name, because then it's entertaining. i still feel a comic sense of dimness in select times of the day. a smattering of paper shreds. 

in the dead of night i look out my window and feebly, i reach out my hand to "you" the glowing green in the distance that keeps me awake and warm enough, oh just barely, barely to feel connection.

when you're here i'll feel that urgency go with the thoughts that reside. years have gone and i let the sun settle because i've convinced myself that starting tonight, tonight, i'll bring that dream to life. you will smile like then. i can reach it, i hold it. you'll run along and i will still follow. 

my love is lost to the memory of devotion in your absence. i'm humble, though. i have nobody to call.

i walked down the block last night, the same as when i held you, down the city streets. saw the floating green in the cracks of concrete and i kneeled down to whisper, asking asking again very very kindly, "please don't let me go. don't let me.

"not you, or me, or you, or you, or me."

i told my guests to please entertain themselves. please entertain yourself. 

i worry that this is the only way i'll write again. i'm miserable in the night. unless at a party, or some other weekend gathering. i have nobody else to call.