adolescent axioms

How’s my heart? Irregular, dear, but it breathes alongside your lungs. An odd partnership, love, but

at least you’re breathing.

You better run somewhere between inhale: beat: exhale: double beat.

Gasp.

hate ourselves in one respect or another, I suppose; I with my scars, and she with her eyes.

need to take some time off, y’know? To relax. Take it slow, pal. It sure ain’t been easy for any of us, but by God, if we get our energy back and stick together we can pull through! -

us three, will ride.

need it. Don’t pretend that you, at least, don’t. It’s your lips that give you away - soft, and slightly moistened, and hanging ever-so-slightly open, with the head slightly askew.

disagree about what to do with the boy.

An ellipsis is something unsaid;  Not broken off, just 

                                                      left 

                                      hanging

                                                 there (maybe a little forlorn or                   perhaps hopeful?).

An implication. A breath of sweet fresh air. Inhale it. See the blankness, the void, see what exactly is missing, fit                                                 the pieces of                                        this jigsaw together,                                                     make them                                  whole. Make me whole. 

(A form of collaboration, in many ways: not a perfect fit, but it bridges.  It leaves you with a suggestive space 

My eyes are exhausted Starring at you wishing for amnesty

Has made me weak 

Waiting for Happiness arms wide open blindly, for my bounty

Has made me weak

Cleaning up after  Myself Because I imposed such faith onto something that is not capable of personifying itself For me

I am learning I guess

Knuckles  shell-shocked white bled dry Angry

All of it These fragments in my life marvels I had seen coming

Has made me weak

well, I said have you ever floated downstream, on your back with the stars above peeping out from a cloudy sky (look there’s Orion, betelgeuse, come to say farewell), and while you drift the breeze strokes your face, whispers goodbyes in your ears, kisses you once, twice, tenderly on the cheek before you turn a corner and drift beyond?

“No” they said. Though their eyes were still pale I noticed they were not trembling, as much.

well then, I said have you ever leaned out your window - too far - what was once comfortable is now strange - the world lurches - catgut strings tighten in your stomach - your heart tickles your tonsils - there is no time for fear - only wonder, and a dreadful curiosity -

But: “No”, they said. And I could not help but notice that though their eyes where still pale the tear had dried, and there were no more.

I thought, then, for a long, long while. You see One has all the time in the world, if one puts their mind to it. So I thought, and then I said:

well have you ever seen night? have you ever felt a cold hand on your shoulder? have you ever heard the sighing wind slowly die away from your hearing as for one final time your eyes close and dim and the light fades and the world turns slowly black?

“Yes-” they said but by then their eyes had already dimmed and as I caught them I saw that I wouldn’t need to explain how it felt anymore.

That was the first thing he said, when we met. It was all terribly cliched, of course; he played the languid, interesting stranger, and I the interested voyeur. When we talked, we talked of things that made the rest of the party seem shallow and inconsequential. When we kissed, we did so with a kind of disinterested passion, an emotion without the required investment. And when we made love that night it was the best fuck I’d ever had.

He was aristocratic, I was upper-middle class. But we were both unashamed snobs. We had Youth, and Beauty and other attributes that deserved to be Capitalized. We consumed fine wines, we talked in aesthetics and Latin and the language of philosophy, and we flaunted privilege wherever we could. Life opened itself before ourselves, golden as the wheat in August, and unashamed and unafraid we grasped it in both hands. We were, we told ourselves, the golden youths, the chosen ones, the immortals.

And we were both husks.

When we display affectation, we begin to become what we present: the mask becomes the man. We showed ourself as careless, superior young men, with other people beneath us and life ripe for the taking. And so we became. But the trouble was, beneath it all was a profound sense of unease, of disquiet. Oh, we could throw ourselves in to thinking and drinking and fucking, open wide the doors to hell and heaven on our path, our quest, to find the orgiastic pleasure of Life. But we refused to accept that this was a bargain, an exchange. We had our languid youth, yes - but out price was terrible.

There is an old wives tale about the food of the elves. It is so potent, so pure, so delicious that after a single bite, all other food afterwards is spoiled forevermore. The freshest bread is sawdust. The choicest lamb is rotten. The finest wine is sour grapes. Sometimes, I wonder how much they knew.

It couldn’t last, of course. We split. The terms were amiable. The strange, dead passion of ours had - died? Perhaps annhilated is a better choice. Either way, he left, as he entered; apologetic and deferential.

And so I find myself here, old. I look at the other people my age, with their golf clubs and their sports cars and their model trains, and I wonder at my exchange. Undoubtedly the price to pay was great - I pay it to this day - and yet, somehow, the memories comfort me, even as I rue their loss.