»jaqueca« by alberto hidalgo (1923)

I might loan you a few for the evening, so you don’t show up at your own crucifixion naked of all purpose.

But for God’s sake, don’t spill any redemption on them! They’re my signature looks. Body by Envy.

Make up & wardrobe provided by Avarice. Lord, if you take away my inordinate cravings, what the hell’s left? Do you know

how much I paid for my best rages? I want them all back if they’re so To Die For. Else shred my palms,

wash my face with spit, let the whip unlace my flesh and free the naked blood, let me be tumbled to immortality

with the stew of flood debris that is my life.

forget the other stories you hear; this one is mine, and in mine

                                                                                                               i leave.

i am not left behind. i am the one walking away and i never bother looking back.

there is no desperate sadness or pleas to stay–

                                      just the quiet street stuck underwater.

i walk away and think not of what i leave behind, but the road that runs never-ending in front of me.

2. postcards

these aren’t love letters. not for us, in any case.

i send post cards without a return address and skip town the next day.

still, you manage to send your letters with pressed flowers; the ink feels more real than you ever did and i wonder

                                                                                                                                        did we exist to each other?

                                                       or did we simply exist besides each other?

i collect your letters and never read through them twice;

when it piles up on the motel table, i hit the road the next day leaving the burned paper behind me.

3.  catharsis

believe it or not, i am not the villain.

                                                       yes,                         i left,

but you abandoned me long before in search of your holy revelation.

                        the poison fortune tellers warn us about was always each other  

                                                                       and now that there are 

                                                                          miles between us

my flesh has stopped rotting away under my skin;

but this doesn’t make you the villain either.

                             there are no monsters or heroes or great quest in our story.

                     there is only you and me: the empty bodied and the living statue–

                                                                      unfeeling, unfaltering and never                                                                           human enough to earn sympathy.

one day i’ll reach the edge of the world and throw aside every trace you left on me;

one day you’ll find sanctuary and fall to your knees in relief

and our story will end as it began:

                                                                     alone and bound in burning eden.

Alphonse de Lamertine - from L'Homme, addressed to Lord Byron in 1819

Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires,

Man is a fallen god who remembers heaven.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

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