*in words* (Saint of the Impossible)
had my thoughts been brought to this point,
staring at an antique perfume bottle adorned in pink and gold with a puff of airiness you could only sense.
I stared at it on a Thursday morning and you called on a Friday night.
(If the world were to leave you tomorrow would you miss it? Or would it miss you?)
“I have no forwarding address to hand off. Please, take my mother’s perfume bottle on her dresser.
I’ve always wanted you to have it” he said
“Did you get my picture of St. Rita?” I asked
“Yes, Saint of the Impossible.” He said
I have no sense of the time and feel I’ve dreamt the words, but can’t be so sure as I open up to the validity of the voice I’ve known for so long yet rarely hear; only from time to time as late as 2am.
I lay here thinking of the possibility of destiny,
Fog blowing up off the morning bay
Giving rise to a sun of essential proportions, which you’ll need to see to fuel you through the rest of your life,
and betting it still is not all grandiose once you take it in because it’s always bigger and better in thought.
So I rise to grant entry to the splendid and depressed life calls home.
And it seems to be all I’ve been doing these days.
But I’ve let you go into this abyss I call forever hate.
These overwhelming emotions can’t escape this fortress already brewing on overspill.
Each day I try to let another piece slip off to reasoning and I don’t care.
(But secretly I do, like everyone who just pretends day by day to have a little bit of happy in reach.
Intentions are welted up to the measure of what is, not what could be.)
Only at 11pm and the sounds of the South,
An image of where you could be standing at that moment you thought of me and dialed in a haze to
You constantly visit my voice and yet never quite hear it; your feelings are in bits and pieces,
but perpetuate my love for you,
How am I to understand your words, “I’m crazy about you.”
(Upon hearing validation of words only with the knowledge it may be.)
You break my heart; break my heart every time I leave your voice.
Conversation is gone in waves that will never return, never knowing if you got sucked into an abyss.
You may surface again, but my doubt is unfulfilling.
The perfume bottle you speak of,
Smells of roses set back in a garden where you could hear your sisters play Joni Mitchell records
till infinite unconsciousness;
breath forms from my lips through the cool New England weather to leave white smoke
a filter rendered film you’d walk through,
10 years full of variations left to destiny.
“DTeez, listen, knowledge is scarce and doesn’t come readily available.
Where had the world taken you?
Have you landed in an alcoholic haze of intelligence at the ‘House of Pain’?”
I know the number has changed and Berkeley Ave is vacant to a party that once was, as ghosts haunt the halls and leave openings for new ones.
I’ve located the perfume bottle and placed it in the palm of my hand, and memories of Rita swirled in fragrant posies.
Lovely Rita, his mother, I had never met, but stories of her multiplied with our friendship.
She lived on many days and died on just one.
Rita evoked thoughts of Beatle’s songs; her background music to a houseful of chaos,
in her sickness DTeez had purchased Rita one birthday wish
His hope? This bottle had a genie.
Here a man telling me of his life in Lowell, MA.
The ambition to bad-boy hood with a tenderness utterly exposed with his smile;
Usually, he checked in every few months primarily to make sure I hadn’t run away for a brighter future.
(It’s always nice to know he is still breathing and not skydiving through heaven.)
Proposing the perfume bottle,
Proposing the rest of his life, not alone, but not with me.
Cradling a piece of his legacy,
I could have been a part of if only he filled his lungs with courage,
but I’ve let it go to only know he does indeed love me,
The perfume scents his past and when I stare I see him.
(You left you’re only love behind and you know it.
If the world were to leave you tomorrow would you miss it or would it miss you?)
Eventually, the tragedy of though, worry of my life will subside.
The ranting fragrance makes me feel lost upon hanging up and lost, so lost,
you know what you do and just refuse to face.
Moments, I clutched the perfume bottle ready, just about to flee with my belongings and become a tattooed nomad with the person I never expected to find, DTeez.
Although still in flux, thinking about the packed bags and all the happenings I have yet to leave behind.
I’m not giving any notice, I had decided on this impromptu trip for years, all in my mind, but now was the only moment I would get in this life, to live in the land of lies
amongst a sinful desert blowing around secrets now one wants to claim as their own,
drenched in an attempt to evaporate