fuckgorewhore

And so she died
and we hung her cadaver of thoughts
way up in an old tree for everyone to see
til' it dried up and fell apart.
her family didn't want me at the funeral,
or the wake,
so I sat alone in a bar
and a strong man nugded me on the shoulder
and said that maybe I'd have had "enough".
before i knew it I was out on the streets,
where I woke up cradling two loaves of white bread.

Sammy had left early for the city,
and she had left the record player on,
the disk spun on like wildfire in the
cigarrette smoke
and my heart was aching.

I had lassoed and lost again,
cradling the last piece of warmth in my hands
while I took a brief trip down memory aisle
where false demons circled above my head.
There was some darkness in that room
and in the small strip of sunshine
above the radiator,
some light.
The small birds 
that died during the winter
had all sprung up from their holes
to sing.

I tried to become an engineer
but the math was too hard.
I tried to become a teacher,
but the words stuck in my mouth.

Slowly I was being drowned
in a sea of buildings and indecisions
so I left that city
and found another one.

I tried to become a writer,
but i had nothing to say,
and the words cut like barbed wire
in my gut,
so I quit.

I tried to tie myself down
in one place,
but my mail always arrives
at my old apartments.

At night I day-dream
of being famous,
of riches and of that lottery ticket
that keeps eluding me,
and now I can't sleep.

I wish I could find work somewhere
and settle in,
any dark hole would do,
and slowly let obscurity 
swallow me.

The doctor said that I should probably learn how to use sign language, I said”ok”. The cancer had spread from the top of my throat and they would have to remove my larynx, and there was no way of getting it all out and not removing it.

The date for the surgery was set, the date passed, and in the hospital room I looked at its walls and listened to the two other occupants talk, I zoomed out, my throat still hurt. My mother came by and asked if I wanted some magazines or maybe a book to pass the time, I couldn’t nod, I only motioned an “ok” with my left hand and she scuttled of down to the bookstore in the downstairs lobby.

The two weeks at the hospital passed by in this fashion, people asking questions, my hands forming an “ok” or the occasional wagging of my fingers which was a “no”. When I finally got out I bought a book on sign language and sat down on my bed and tried to make sense of it, but I soon drifted away into my own dark thoughts.

That night I dreamt that I was at the hospital again, I talked to the doctor about how it felt to be able to talk, and then I talked some more, and then some more until I finally woke up mid sentence.  I met my friend David in an old coffee shop and he asked me about the surgery, I only nodded or shuffled my hands into the occasional “maybe”. A few minutes after we had sat down in that coffee shop we were two people staring into the black tar floating inside the stained porcelain cups, and occasionally, out of the window, listening to the cars that passed by on the little cobble street outside.

I went to a bar, but the bartender couldn’t understand me, and I pointed my finger at a beer, he gave me the wrong one but I paid for it and sat down in a barstool facing a large window and sat there quietly while people came in and out. A beautiful redhead sat down in the barstool next to mine and smiled, and I nodded and faced away to the street, where the orange light from the streetlights reflected itself in the red neon-metallic of a Volvo. I ordered another beer and watched the rays of orange and red grow dimmer and hazier.

Weeks passed in this fashion, and I moved back into my old room at my mother’s house, where I looked out of the white wood framed window and watched our only apple tree in the yard where some birds gathered every morning to sing. Snow was falling, and no one called anymore, and the white snow on the roads turned brown with dirt.

I had still not learned how to speak sign language, and the book was crusted in dust, sometimes when I tried to play on my old torn piano I looked at the book and wondered whether I should pick it up, but, no. sometimes at night I could hear the neighbors fighting, but mostly the world was in a deep seated silence. I never ventured in to down after a couple of weeks, I just stayed at home and watched the time pass by as the dust piled on top of that sign language book.

My brother came by sometimes, and said “hi” and “how are you” and I would nod and then he would say “ok then”, when he had gone I returned to looking out of my window, dreaming.

Weeks passed, and he birds where long since gone, and I didn’t cry at night either, but the world was still silent, I looked through my old school papers and found a VCR in the attic that said “Carl’s first school play” and watched it over and over again until it finally broke, and then I was mute again. My mother told me that I should go to a support group, I gestured “maybe”.

Days passed, and the support group made the days slower, sometimes I would understand, sometimes I needed someone to explain to me what was said. I stopped listening to music, and I unplugged my television set, soon I forgot how to talk.

Months passed, and one night I dreamt that I was in a vast desert, panting with frustration, when I finally found the way out there was a tall man in white standing in front of it asking me for the password, when I tried to tell him in sign language that I didn’t know he only shook his head. Then I was in Paris and a street musician played on his guitar in a subway car, but no sounds came out when he strummed the strings and the subway car wasn’t moving, but standing still in the middle of a square, then a man came to ask me for my ticket and I woke up shaking my head.

Days passed, and early one morning my ex called me and told me that she missed me and that she didn’t care if I couldn’t talk, she said “goodbye” and hung up, I smiled and returned to bed, daydreaming of her.

Weeks passed, and she had committed suicide, and at her funeral her family quickly stopped talking to me, I had some wine and listened to the sound of cries at her wake in her parents’ house.

I went to a follow up appointment with my doctor, who said that I had made a complete recovery, and congratulated me. When I came home I sat down on my bed and looked out the window at the apple tree. I slipped under my sheets hoping to fall asleep and never to wake up again, waiting for the silence to come.

Rain,
I hear its sound
banging on my window,
and outside, on the street,
there's not much else worth to hear
or describe but this
rain.
I look into the red darkness of my eyelids
and purse my lips and curl my throat.
"I won't go out today",
I whisper to anyone, and coil myself
into my dirty sheets
and try to fall into another nightmare
but the dreams won't take me
so I stare into my white walls
not thinking,
listening to the
rain.