siam
05-14-2002, 10:37 PM
i posted this a while ago, because i knew when she quit talking to me the day my grandmother died...that i would never see her again. she died this morning. and that ended the era of some torqued and half-drunk camelot. she was beautiful and clever and smart and unafraid. she had favorites and piles of books on every subject bent and frayed by being read and read and read. she had volumes of perfectly completed crossword puzzles done in ink. out of all my life i can count on one hand the moments when i thought she might have liked me. it was more an observation than a concern...until my grandmother started dying. just like i figured her dislike of me was more just disinterest until then. anyway. i thought of writing something...but the page was just too blank...and the pen was just too full...and there was nothing else to say anyway. so i just figured i'd re-post something that barely even referred to her...but had everything in the world to do with that feeling.
siam
she quit talking to me the day my grandmother died.
she hugged me at the funeral
but didn't say a word.
i guess whatever she had to say
could be heard
in the silence anyway.
i'm more like her than i ever thought.
there were two days out of twenty-eight years
that i thought she liked me.
there were a hundred and forty one days out of the last five months
that let me know she didn't...and that she would never forgive me.
i guess i would have ended up
just like her if my mom
hadn't taught me about resolution.
my stomach hurts.
i fill my pockets up with junior mints
and finish my cherry coke
before getting out of the car
and heading for the door.
my stomach hurts.
he said, "now, i hope you're not gonna tell me you're drunk."
i shook my head...still
staring at the gas heater
on the floor across the room.
i thought if i had anything to say
i'd say it in some poem and post it here
like a fifth beer.
i thought if i could shrug
i would have shrugged it off
like last year.
but anyway...it didn't matter.
he drug me off the couch and to the floor.
ca-clunk-clunk.
my only taste of fame
was dating a guy whose name
was chanted through the bleachers for three years.
it tasted strangely of rolling rock
and four o'clock and cologne.
later he would come
to realize
i couldn't fake it.
it was labor day of '99
we were outside
he was crying
later he would ask me
not to write about it.
it was sunday
it was inevitable
it was the reason i am sorry every day
there was nothing left to say
words can't make silence go away
i don't know.
i guess maybe i just thought
if i hoped enough
all the other stuff
would just appear.
i guess it doesn't work that way.
maybe it doesn't work at all.
whatever.
a roach crawled across my shoulder
and i thought if time was older
this would all just simply be
some half-there memory
of something that never happened to me
at all.
it was over soon enough
he kissed me and said something about love
and i put on my shirt
anyhow...the guy from the bleachers?
i dated him off and on for seven years.
he never changed
and all i did was rearrange
so who cares.
it really wasn't until i walked out of that trailer
at five a.m. on that morning last july
that i even came to understand
the whole fucking point of this place
i never never land
on my feet in...
the whole thing hit me from behind
the "what the hell am i doing here at five in the morning? and what the hell am i doing there seven years later?"
it was all the same thing.
they both would say on my way out
that they wanted to marry me.
can you believe that?
they thought i laughed
because i was a bitch or
because i had low self-esteem.
anyhow.
i push open the door as quietly as i can
and go inside.
i think the problem i have with locating
started when i was five.
i thought i could depend on the evidence
of my five senses...
but then i opened the box of crayons
and there were twenty-four shades of blue.
and one was blue-green
and another was green-blue
and that started the whole, "Where the fuck am I and how will I ever know the truth!?!?"
and so i just reached over
and picked up the glue
and started sniffing.
he asks me all the time what i'm thinking.
i only answer outloud when i've been drinking.
otherwise i shrug and look away
never knowing what he wants me to say
he says he loves me...
and that this is all he wants.
rebecca was my very best friend in college.
she had long brown hair
and knew all the pauses in every pink floyd song.
she was smart and tucked in
and was a fun drunk.
we used to break into the barn
on the farm
half a mile down the road
and walk the high beams
at three in the morning
talking about religion and poetry and him.
she made me wear a purple dress
the day she married matt.
i drank twenty-four shots of goldschlager
but she hated me way before that.
now she lives in north dakota
and never speaks my name.
god, i hate this place.
i slide into the pew in the back
and close my eyes.
i have a back log of conversations
to regurgitate
to fill the wait
of ever saying what i feel.
some noise to prolong this thing from being real
some static sound
to tangle around
whatever i'll end up saying next.
sometimes words are my only friends
they build these halls that keep me in
and keep everything else inside out.
i want to tell you
the gut honest truth
but i can't even hear it in my head
i just write hoping my mind can be read
and translated back to me.
my stomach hurts.
i fish in my pocket for a junior mint
and half a pencil.
why do these things come up whenever i want to talk to you
i mean really talk
whenever i feel the need to locate
to find out where we are
to open my eyes and look around
why do these ghosts of circumstance start making sounds
that echo off the walls
that keep me from saying anything at all
reminding me
of what i was
and what i'll never be
like some fucked up prophecy
finding the whoreascope
and the bitch a rope
a day late to end it all before it starts
i end up drinking alone in my room
wishing it was later than six hours after noon...
wishing i was older
different
invisible all together.
eating less every day
to erase
the part of me
that can be seen.
and feed the part that doesn't know what anything in me means
siam
she quit talking to me the day my grandmother died.
she hugged me at the funeral
but didn't say a word.
i guess whatever she had to say
could be heard
in the silence anyway.
i'm more like her than i ever thought.
there were two days out of twenty-eight years
that i thought she liked me.
there were a hundred and forty one days out of the last five months
that let me know she didn't...and that she would never forgive me.
i guess i would have ended up
just like her if my mom
hadn't taught me about resolution.
my stomach hurts.
i fill my pockets up with junior mints
and finish my cherry coke
before getting out of the car
and heading for the door.
my stomach hurts.
he said, "now, i hope you're not gonna tell me you're drunk."
i shook my head...still
staring at the gas heater
on the floor across the room.
i thought if i had anything to say
i'd say it in some poem and post it here
like a fifth beer.
i thought if i could shrug
i would have shrugged it off
like last year.
but anyway...it didn't matter.
he drug me off the couch and to the floor.
ca-clunk-clunk.
my only taste of fame
was dating a guy whose name
was chanted through the bleachers for three years.
it tasted strangely of rolling rock
and four o'clock and cologne.
later he would come
to realize
i couldn't fake it.
it was labor day of '99
we were outside
he was crying
later he would ask me
not to write about it.
it was sunday
it was inevitable
it was the reason i am sorry every day
there was nothing left to say
words can't make silence go away
i don't know.
i guess maybe i just thought
if i hoped enough
all the other stuff
would just appear.
i guess it doesn't work that way.
maybe it doesn't work at all.
whatever.
a roach crawled across my shoulder
and i thought if time was older
this would all just simply be
some half-there memory
of something that never happened to me
at all.
it was over soon enough
he kissed me and said something about love
and i put on my shirt
anyhow...the guy from the bleachers?
i dated him off and on for seven years.
he never changed
and all i did was rearrange
so who cares.
it really wasn't until i walked out of that trailer
at five a.m. on that morning last july
that i even came to understand
the whole fucking point of this place
i never never land
on my feet in...
the whole thing hit me from behind
the "what the hell am i doing here at five in the morning? and what the hell am i doing there seven years later?"
it was all the same thing.
they both would say on my way out
that they wanted to marry me.
can you believe that?
they thought i laughed
because i was a bitch or
because i had low self-esteem.
anyhow.
i push open the door as quietly as i can
and go inside.
i think the problem i have with locating
started when i was five.
i thought i could depend on the evidence
of my five senses...
but then i opened the box of crayons
and there were twenty-four shades of blue.
and one was blue-green
and another was green-blue
and that started the whole, "Where the fuck am I and how will I ever know the truth!?!?"
and so i just reached over
and picked up the glue
and started sniffing.
he asks me all the time what i'm thinking.
i only answer outloud when i've been drinking.
otherwise i shrug and look away
never knowing what he wants me to say
he says he loves me...
and that this is all he wants.
rebecca was my very best friend in college.
she had long brown hair
and knew all the pauses in every pink floyd song.
she was smart and tucked in
and was a fun drunk.
we used to break into the barn
on the farm
half a mile down the road
and walk the high beams
at three in the morning
talking about religion and poetry and him.
she made me wear a purple dress
the day she married matt.
i drank twenty-four shots of goldschlager
but she hated me way before that.
now she lives in north dakota
and never speaks my name.
god, i hate this place.
i slide into the pew in the back
and close my eyes.
i have a back log of conversations
to regurgitate
to fill the wait
of ever saying what i feel.
some noise to prolong this thing from being real
some static sound
to tangle around
whatever i'll end up saying next.
sometimes words are my only friends
they build these halls that keep me in
and keep everything else inside out.
i want to tell you
the gut honest truth
but i can't even hear it in my head
i just write hoping my mind can be read
and translated back to me.
my stomach hurts.
i fish in my pocket for a junior mint
and half a pencil.
why do these things come up whenever i want to talk to you
i mean really talk
whenever i feel the need to locate
to find out where we are
to open my eyes and look around
why do these ghosts of circumstance start making sounds
that echo off the walls
that keep me from saying anything at all
reminding me
of what i was
and what i'll never be
like some fucked up prophecy
finding the whoreascope
and the bitch a rope
a day late to end it all before it starts
i end up drinking alone in my room
wishing it was later than six hours after noon...
wishing i was older
different
invisible all together.
eating less every day
to erase
the part of me
that can be seen.
and feed the part that doesn't know what anything in me means