PISTOLS, BIBLES & SLEEPING PILLS
Lately the days and minutes blend together in different shades of daylight and dusk. Sometimes I sleep for fourteen hours, sometimes I don’t sleep for two days. I don’t particularly want or need anything, even food lacks a savouring quality, cigarettes seem stale, repetitive like a heartbeat. Love letters from Dubai, dirty messages from an old man, phone calls from across the states. The faces around me are familiar yet I am the stranger in their wake. A body functioning on water, pills, a waivering faith.
Do you want to hear about the sex? The violence carried out against the unknown? My independent soul, heartless ways, empty bank account. Off the grid, useless pieces of paper. Hidden in the walls I built. You couldn’t find me inside there if you tried. Hot and cold, tired, restless, finding things never looked for. Winter air stings freshly shed skin, pale pile of what used to be. A heap of uselessness.
It may not be what you wanted, but this is what you get.
No longer visible in the reflection of yr eyes. Dry lips passionate in their way, spider fingers curling around the curve of beaten hips. Spread thy legs to the devil who fucks you, who broke a heart so many times before. Who one day might crush the hope of repentance. He who watches so steadily as I consume poison made for the masses, cannabis smoke thick and heady, the power of chemicals turning blue eyes red. A chameleon that shames yet feels no guilt. Still, I do not laugh, I do not sleep, I do not weep.
Thirty days of exile. Who could explain Jesus to you, when it’s Mary Magdalene who kisses feet, wipes the blood from the wounds on a golden back, sharpened nails plunging into a heavy skull. A whore with one saviour. Not you, not yet. We do not speak of such heresy like love or futures, we call to the darkness of our next deed, the emptiness of the hours that have escaped me. Perversions of lust, taboo red seas spilled from the innocence long lost. Welts rise upon flesh where he strikes over and over, each hit harder by hands that never held mine. You would think my skin would toughen by now; not yet, not for you.
Nothing but a stone turned over, the moisture of dirt never seen by the sun. Death waxed poetic. Will you cry at my funeral, when I am gone? You do not move. I know the answer. You will go first. Strong bones and beautiful hair reduced to dust, picked clean by desert vultures. A love never professed will haunt me, but I will not cry, I will bury you under my dirt, deep in the earth who has not forgiven me.
If you should rise after three days, it will be me who has left. My appetite will return the longer I force myself to wander, sleep will come after miles of searching. Crawling towards a grave I dug myself. A prophet told me when it was time, I would be ready. Omens upon deaf ears then, but I gave him my money anyway. The last blow hurts the least.
