Counterfeit Memories

For it would seem - her case proved it - that we write, not with the fingers, but with the whole person. The nerve which controls the pen winds itself about every fibre of our being, threads the heart, pierces the liver.

I don’t know how to not write about leaving. A poem where we stay, living in doorsteps. Making our bed in post boxes and eating beakfast on the fire escape with the magpies. There is no ending where this ends up in a living room, on a kitchen table. Where I don’t leave (lipstick on paper cups) And you don’t leave (me wanting). Abandoning doorsteps and train stations. Any thing else Is just wishful thinking like wish you were here, even if I don’t know where to keep you.

“Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.”

Infatuation despised word whispering something less

Breath deep The gathering gloom Watch lights fade From every room Bedsitter people Look back and lament Another day’s useless Energy spent

If you propose to speak always ask yourself, is it true, is it necessary, is it kind.

Three days after you moved out, I found a jar in the freezer labeled in black sharpie with OPEN ONLY IN CASE OF EMERGENCY and I’m not sure what it contains or how long it has been there. The glass is frosted over and the lid is frozen shut and it is not an emergency right now but I want to take that jar out and crack it open in the sink and find out what you felt was so important it needed to be buried in the shivering cold behind the peas and the popsicles. Every so often, when I cannot sleep and I am thinking of you I go downstairs to the kitchen and open the freezer door, stand with the cold fog billowing out and I look at the jar you left for me, wondering what emergency could be greater than finding myself without you. This poem © Gabriel Gadfly. Published Sep 19, 2012