Exosomatic Memory

[exosomaticmemory]

Waking up in a bed that wasn’t yours this morning

Waking up in another world

Searching for shifts in the strange night, for holes in the structure

I spend longer in the mirror, my fingers tap my flesh, see if it’s still there - still mine - still yours - now his

I wipe black smudges from under my eyes, brush my teeth with my fingers

These things are familiar patterns

Things that once felt glamourous but are meant to be growing tired. I guess I’m growing tired maybe

I step onto the street and it feels the most fitting days are always filled with rain

So painfully thirsty I wish the sky would open wider, pour itself into my mouth

I tip my head back and open wider, playing with the sky, playing god as usual

Wish the rain would fill the air around me, send me under water, send me something to fill the space

Sitting at the bottom of the swimming pool - in a hotel - with my sister - never ever opening my eyes

I dream of these days and these places

I walk home to another bed that isn’t mine, in a room that isn’t mine, in a city that isn’t mine

On a street lined with houses of people I’ve never seen

This bed, this island, this swimming pool, this city never opening my eyes

So much space beside me, trying to decide who I miss

[exosomaticmemory]

Every time I ask how you are, I only mean

Are you sober?

All these things I loved,

7-11 lunches wrapped in plastic bags, with a frozen mug

There was always the desire to keep me safe in only the way you know how

How neither of us could tell who said I love you first

Everything lost in a haze

Wake up lines & sleeping with the lights on

Panicked breathing under the fluorescents of the grocery store

Hushing your habits with my own, speaking of your tragedy through frenzied, bumbled monologues to outside friends

Finding bottles of Finlandia in every corner of my consciousness

We could go anywhere, do anything, stay up for as long as we wanted, so long as we could

This feeling is so far from me now, and sometimes I wonder if getting straight was giving up

I grasp at pieces of myself because until I can figure out how we fit together, I will never feel like I’m telling the truth

Because now there is you,

You, and we hold hands down by the river

We floss our teeth on the living room floor

And we get drunk on the couch still, but we feel warmer & closer,

and I pretend to read while thinking about your duvet and your passenger seat and your purple shirt and all the things that prove me and you

This moment couldn’t be me, couldn’t be the same life, couldn’t be something I get to keep

This feels too easy to be love

[exosomaticmemory]

We live in the most beautiful ugly city

My friends and lovers are all dealers and used car salesmen

Selling lemon and sugar and dreams

And in this paradise garden, all men are gods

whose hands hold all the weight of all your worlds

All the demons are disguised as angels and we eat the fruit of every tree, till juice is pouring from our lips

We still know nothing

[exosomaticmemory]

I wish I wrote about you more but I was always too high or too low Reflection seems to come with the come down but we found a way around that type of thing by now My worries dissolve into my bloodstream Words dissolve, licked back under my tongue Aches vanish, tensed muscles relax, clenched fists release, clamped jaw slacks out Droopy eyes and ashtray fingers search your empty face for hints Who would've ever guessed I would wish for simply, feet on the ground

[exosomaticmemory]

In a hotel room fan clicking and whirling, the world poker tournament is on in the background

I'm pretending we're in the Bellagio, you just won a million dollars, I'm a misunderstood stripper

with heart

We're running away tomorrow, we have wedding rings

I never wanted anything else

In a hotel room fan clicking and whirling, a skateboarding documentry is on in the background

I could've been in the bones brigade, we make a pact, we're going to bring the glory back

Everything I own fits in this backpack sort of if I push hard

We're running away tomorrow, we have new sneakers

We don't need anything else

There's a light on the ceiling that blinks all night and I use it to count the time

I leave my empty coffee mugs everywhere so you know I stayed a while

When I'm mad I take all my clothes with me and I pretend I might not come back

In a hotel room fan clicking and whirling, SNL is on not in the background

I have a crush on the news guy, I have a crush on everyone but you, you say

I'm running home tomorrow, I have wet clothes and three left over all-bran bars

I don't really deserve much else

[exosomaticmemory]

There's an old Chilean man whistling at the top of the mountain, maybe if I sit here for long enough I'll become part of the rock

Maurice is cooling the beers in the river and I'm building ships and ships and ships in wine bottle

You're sliding the pillow under my head, then over my face. Pulling me closer, smaller

Then I'm a pebble lining the traintracks, a piece of gravel in a mound

When the steam engine comes for us I'll shake like the rest, remembering the man and our mountain

I fell from the best

[exosomaticmemory]

It rained three kilometres on the walk back but I wish it had rained all seven, because the least you could do is give me some goddamn pathetic fallacy

wallowing with the curtains drawn has never been any fun

the wind is screaming at me and I think it's saying jump into the flooding river already, it's only a matter of time

it's only a matter of time.

High rolling in a hotel room too fancy for my scuffed soles, we were more untouchable than ever

you hid all the drug money in the the safe and I drank water from the wine glasses, turning up the fan so high I thought I'd blow away

That one night you probably forgot to remember, you were hanging off the edge of a cliff- no wait it was Riley's bed, you told us it was only ever realistic for the villain to win

why doesn't anyone ever write that ending?

Maybe that's where your movie ended; you strolling out the door, into the sun, into the daylight

but I sat there in that obnoxiously large bed, white sheets built in a fort around me, and I want you to lose

I want you to lose

[exosomaticmemory]

On staying.

leaving people watching people watch you leave leaves on the ground, now mostly in your hair ground up oh so small leaves Leaving on the tips of your fingers leaving balling up under your tongue Always leaving my clothes in your bed always leaving your legs over me, your arms over me You were always leaving your body in your sleep

[exosomaticmemory]

and you'll find me here

smoking my brains out with nothing but socks on,

cause that's as far as I got today

you haven't given me any beautiful and I think I maybe would've tried but I dropped it beneath somebody's couch cushions a while back

And I like standing with my toes hanging off of the curb but the sour taste of gasoline got stuck in my throat today

I've been hiding behind you for so long, my knuckles have taken root in your back

[exosomaticmemory]

in the beginning

I thought things would be running

in sprinklers, and mapping

out the stars

But more often I'm finding it's passing

out, slumped over your own knees

in an armchair

and washing your

insides out

of strands of that too-long hair at three o'clock in the afternoon

A week after I left him I shared a bed with someone who shared the name of someone famous

I walked home in the snow, then took a bath and bandaged up my beaten toes

[exosomaticmemory]

I cringe to some degree every time someone calls me beautiful

Even though it's less like I'm lying

more leaning

through scrambling, shifting weight like a conman

Yeah. Marketing.

It's creating a product that sells

like entertainment that barricades you alone in your house all day, or low fat chips that Hannah devours standing in front of the sink.

I once told you I had to say something or I would be lying

you said it would have been more humane to have kept lying a little longer.

Maybe I'll tattoo the fine print across my body, the particulars wrapping around my thighs, winding up to my wrists

that time he walked past me in that shitty apartment complex hallway, how many tiles were on the floor

well it could be tucked behind my knees

and in a magnificent, slender cursive resting between my hipbones

a conman won't ever be conned

[exosomaticmemory]

your words are beautiful. maybe you could read some of mine? give me some feedback? :) (the url's theseuncontrollablevoices, since the blog i'm asking you on is my primary blog) thank you so much. keep writing.

oh my goodness thanks so much, I would love to. I don't know how much help I'll be but I'd love to check it out :)

[exosomaticmemory]

Hidden under a strangers awning; cuddled up to a garage door like our lives depended on it

I think they did

We slid down to the concrete, clutching our knees to our chest. Raindrops bounced off the pavement ten feet high, rolling towards us like a liquid landslide

I was still shaking in my boots but you were barefoot, out from the awning and down the street

We followed behind desperately, the thick rainfall tugging our feet down, wisping around our ankles with an iron grip

You were laughing maniacally with arms outstretched and face to the sky and you told me you were being Natalie Portman in that movie we watched while we still shared a blanket. Lightening rattles the earth and you swore you felt it in your shins

The gods must have a bone to pick with you

A half stranger whispers in my ear and winks

and I haven't stopped looking over my shoulder since

[exosomaticmemory]

we have the same initials

My sister lay beside me with her coffee stained skin and unkempt hair, we had crawled into bed last night sometime after I had touched the stars yet slightly before the night sky grabbed back at me.

Under a white duvet we found the safest place in the world; a fort made by the collapse of our bodies and  the clutching of pillows. The breeze squeezes through the meager holes in the screen, fluttering over to tickle our shoulders and pouring it's chill over our warm bodies

I pulled her from the bathroom floor the way she pulls me and I'm beginning to believe there is no such love as pure as that. This closeness comes from days hidden under kitchen table forts and loves lost.

There is an understanding that will always be there, regardless of lack of knowledge or reasoning,  there is such a desperation to hold on brought on by terrifying first days of school apart and through dismal morphine jokes and hospital beds.

So we lay still, washed white by the sheets and smoldering in the sunlight.

[exosomaticmemory]

it's a backseat

and the driver's swerving, taking you off the edge of  a cliff - or maybe you've just had too much to drink

someone's telling you're beautiful, so beautiful

you've forgotten his name but a nod is enough

and you give that grin; that grin is always enough

Until it's not.

because your legs, those legs, those blistered knees

that birthmark that connects to that scar, making constellations, telling stories

the air is so warm and you've never dreamed of hands so soft

fingers wandering through strands of hair like no one else has ever been aloud to do

Now.

 you're on the floor and it's arms pulling and tugging

come back up here

he only speaks to closed eyelids and your head has finally found it's resting place on the seat

you're hidden

you're safe

[exosomaticmemory]

There is a morning

there is a sunrise we bottled up and stole away

we filtered it apart and you kept all the pinks and I kept all the reds

I swear I've never heard so much and so little sound in all my life.

We retraced our steps through the water lines left on our shoes, the little things we had dropped along the way and that funny scrape you got just below your knee

teeth chatter and our bodies shiver till all our bones have broken then fallen back together

somewhat different than before, maybe that was when we started to stagger

we pointed out the purple in the grass and it's funny how I thought that would be the morning that changed everything

[exosomaticmemory]

Nicknames

For so brief a moment, less than half a heartbeat, you managed to meet my eyes.

I could glimpse the guilt hacking and thrashing at your irises while your pupils devour the light like a black hole. I am less than appalled at my satisfaction.

In truth, I hope you can't even hear my name anymore. I yearn for your shoulders to tense violently, I ache for your muscles to lock into a painful position till every final syllable has faded from the air.

I beg you to believe me when I say, I was rather smug that you refer to me as that girl. Does my name, as well, latch itself your tongue? Fighting rather devoutly never to venture out of those lips of yours, I bet. At times I add a from July, just to specify you must understand. We both know well that I could never stomach losing you.