9.24.10 Poetics

dear ex-lover,

it's best we parted ways
as i roam the city you plan out your miles
ever patient I was charting the feet
it killed me a little inside.
i loved you that valentines day
when you handed me roses with brown petals.
gestures in tide, it was the river that swallowed them whole.
when i smiled you demanded more teeth
being happy less important than appearing in bliss.

avoiding tap water but swimming in vodka
never seemed like a solid foundation
of bodily respect but you insisted
resisting i said, vodka headaches abound, i am clean this day
you said you loved me anyway.

is it too forward to go backward?
amiss the past with these predictions of what lies ahead?
like everything else we are
at opposite spectrums.

at curtain call you prefer a clean break
for the fresh air
while I stay to clap,
a smile in tow, but not too many teeth.

New York

I've always fantasized about a life in New York.  Something like a rickety fire escape, a big black kettle on the ancient stove, cracked tiles, snow and cigarettes.  I've written so many stories about New York; true be told,  it's become my only source of inspiration.   It's always been a pipe dream.   A fantasy.  A place to take my imagination.

Now, it has the potential to become reality. A job opportunity has literally fallen into my lap.  The means of my contact is a story in and of itself.  The brief version: an old client, with whom I engage in extremely inappropriate conversation, has dropped my name for a newly abandoned position.   Within hours of learning this, the hiring manager had my resume in his hands and will be calling me soon to discuss the opportunity.

I'm torn already and the phone has not even rung.  I am content in my life here in Chicago.  I have a decent job, amazing friends, a killer apartment and a parking spot to claim my own (unheard of).  My family is nearby.  I know the best beaches, the best bars, the best eats and how to get just about anywhere.  The Chicago El system is a vivid image in my mind and I can get you from O'Hare to a Sox game for $2.50. 

I know nothing of New York, save the images I've created and the movies I've seen.  The subway is three times the size of Chicago and the vast neighborhoods are daunting to learn.

But I am pulled (in both directions).   I can't wait to see how the conversation goes.  If I don't land an interview, then hey, it was fun to dream for a few days.   If I do land an interview, I'll nail it, because that's what I do.  I would have to go. Even if only a year, I would have to try it.  Home will always be Chicago, and it's only a plane ride away.  But do I want to leave home?  For somewhere I've never been and know no one?  Not even my contact lives in NY, he's in the LA office...  my nearest friend is in Jersey and a few acquaintances in Queens.

Come on, phone.  Ring.

Ex-Lovers

he spits out haikus
on 7th and delancy
i scribble my name


blackbirds fly over
sun burned telephone wires
no where to call home.

it's snowing inside.

Nearly four years ago I watched a friend overdose on heroin.   I didn't know what was happening.  He left the room for a few minutes and returned with a burst of energy.  A burst of behavior.   The rest of us watched whatever bad October horror movie was on television, but my eyes flitted between the screen and his compulsive cleaning of the ashtray.  When he finally sat down next to me, I assumed my focus back on the tv.  Minutes went by before I looked over at him.  By then he was blue.  His fingers and lips were an ashen color and his breath was shallow and fleeting.  It's a blur and a whirl recalling it years later.  I remember arguing with his roommate that an ambulance had to be called.  His roommate was more concerned with the fact that they still had a stash in the apartment.   I called for help anyway, unphased by whatever consequences awaited.  Though I have never dabbled in the drug, I would gladly go to jail for being in it's presence under such circumstances.

I put down my phone and started slapping my blue friend across the face.  I screamed his name.   I pressed his lips against mine and filled his lungs with stale air.  Nothing.  A shallow breath, a deeper blue.   His roommate insisted that we bring him down stairs.   In his warped (and later I found out, heroin induced) state of mind - EMT's in his apartment was the worst case scenario.  My worst case scenario was watching blue turn to gray and a shallow breath turn to breathless.

There were 3 of us carrying his dead-weight body.  The roommate stopped to throw up in the stairwell.   Then there were two.   We placed him down on the floor and I sat by his side desperately trying to wake him up.   Red and blue flashed outside.   Within seconds he was on a gurnee and someone screamed "Narcban".   I saw him stir, color returning to his cheeks, breaths increasingly less shallow.

They asked me questions and I answered them the best I could.   I followed him to the hospital alone.  His "friends" were too overwhelmed with the events.   And I sat in the waiting room alone.  Waiting.  Hours passed and my now pink friend met me with angry eyes.   He was angry, you see, because I had opened a door - the police had the right to some search his apartment for illegal substances.   He was angry and embarrassed.  He was not grateful for a life returned.  

I took him home and begged him to let me flush what he had left.   He refused.   I wrote this the next day. 

it's snowing inside

it's snowing inside.
you leave me (no choice)
dance off to the bedroom with a smile.
white flurries up your nose.

the windows won't fog
with such shallow breath.
i'm screaming at the others,
do you hear me?

your blue toes
match your fingers
(entwined with mine-
not squeezing back)

i press my pink lips
to your gray mouth
and push dead air in.
no one helps.

i slap you.
pour a river of water
upon your head.
a baptism.

nothing.

it's still snowing inside.
your roomate
does not like
cops.

i call anyway.
pull you out the door.
hold your hand.
beg you to breathe.

men pile in the lobby.
push me aside.
heroin, i say.
he nods, like he knows already.

gray lips fade to pink.
eyelids flutter.
chest rises.
a breath.

heroine, they say.
but I don't
believe
them.