Silhouettes and Wet-Dreams

I peel back the skin, and grimace. I used to think I was beautiful, but this molting has gone on for too long. I fill plastic bag after plastic bag with the remnants of the man I was. Photos carefully organized, text messages quickly erased, and blushes awaiting command. I comb my hair back at spit at my reflection. My heart pretends to beat, and I pretend to breathe, and she pretends to smile, and he pretends to love me. I am caught half way between dream and stone, clumsily clawing my way up, ever upwards. I sit on the curb and make a show of being a man, I crouch in the bushes and piss like a dog marking his territory.

Pictures meticulously taped to a brick wall, so sturdy, and yet so fragile. I wasted so many weeks, so many days dreaming of a face I'd never see. One bit of paper smells like pleasure, and another is bland premature blackmail. I use to think she was safety, I use to think she was pristine, pure, and full of pleasant words meant only for me. I went to bed with flint and steel between my legs, and no one can put out the fire. The little one, that little girl that calls me brother, she said she wanted to meet my porcupine and my lizard brain, and they both arose with passion and dirty thoughts in their little minds. I slammed the door in their faces, and tried to talk her down from the ledge, but I worry she can't speak my language. She holds so tight to the idea that she pretends is me, a stern, handsome knight in shinning armor. I refuse to hurt her, even though she begs for me to push her down the stairs. Can someone so empty as I feel really say they have friends in high places?

I am caught between an illusion and a nightmare. Gold fills my nose and mouth, and my knees are so weak. I can't get up out of this chair, I can't rush to her side, but I am cursed to hear her screams as cuts her own flesh and muscles from her pretty little bones. I can hear the blood dripping on the floor, and I can hear her breathe growing shallow and slow, tears fill my eyes, I can't save her this time. I wrestle with a dragon and he spits venom in my face, it stings but feels good. She's clouded from my view now, wreathed in fog, but no, she is smoke now, ethereal, elusive, ephemeral, and she's always with me, making me cough and sputter in awe and reverence, she was so beautiful. Such lovely curves, such lovely....teeth. I am holding fast to the idea that I never had skin or bones or muscle or hair or eyes or anything else that might be aroused when it touches her. It curls around my waist and winks at me, this dragon is such a tease.

Ha. Ha. Ha. He. He. Hoo. Ha. I paint my face, pretending I am just fine. I am getting drunk alone, pretending I am not a drunk. I remember this one time when she danced with me; awkwardly. Almost immobile, stiff like a corpse, but still not cold, that would come later. I touched her shoulder, and she swore she'd get even, so I dropped my pants and winked at her, and she stared in horror at the dragon still curled around my waist, damn thing won't leave me be. I take the scalpel and hammer in hand and play surgeon, I try as I might but the dragon bores deeper into me, and he starts to change form, and little fireworks go off behind my eyes. She meets my gaze then, and realizes she left the stove on, and rushes off lest she become an accidental arsonist. So I am left there with my pants around my ankles and a dragon doing slaughter inside me. I wear the noose she made for me around my neck with pride. Is it mauve?, I ask, smiling. She rolls her eyes and grips my manhood between her forefinger and thumb like a vice and spits in my eyes. I reel back, and being to sob. She uncorks the bottle and drinks it whole and smashes it over her children's heads, and laughs.

The little one, that little girl that calls me brother, she rises from the grave at last and I embrace her in a fervor of relief and desire. Her hand slips down my pants and slap her across the mouth, immediately regretting my decision to let her love me. She doesn't cry or run away, she kisses me then, and I taste ash and remorse. She tries in vain to remove my shirt, only to find I am not breathing anymore. She leaves me then, and I open one eye to watch her go. I love her, and she knows it. But I don't want her to get my smell on her, she's worth more than a pound of flesh, more than the world says she's worth, worth more than I am. Carry on, little sister, carry on and never look back.

Silhouettes and wet-dreams are all I have to keep me company now that the little one, that little girl that calls me brother, has left me in the dirt. Well, those two nightmares, and my dragon. I catch a glimpse of something outrageous out of the corner of my eye, and I run in a panicked frenzy. These aren't the droids I am looking for, but I dig up old flavors now. Let me get back to the point. Remember when I was your beau, and you were my Muse, and the sun rose and set on our little empire? Such was our golden age: tears, laughs, spilled hot chocolate, and that damn dog sniffling and slobbering about my feet. We walked up and down the high streets and the low creek beds, hoping no one thought we were being too forward. Remember when my hand first touched yours? Only took my fathers worst nightmare made real to drive your flesh into mine. Funny things scruples, they're like a sack of rocks tied to your eyelids, never letting you admire what you find most appealing. But I digress.

An eye-blink and you changed your mind, once you were content to not let me touch you, and the next, actually, you never let me touch you or your soul. But such chaos we wrought, pinning little idols to the walls of your brothers hovel, never letting him forget that we remembered where he hung his coat. Remember your fathers jokes, remember his eyes? Ah, well, I shouldn't bring up old scars, better to let it all lie, like narcoleptic hounds...with fleas.

They say to me, wasn't she more fun? They say to me, wasn't she far sweeter? They say to me, didn't she feel more natural? There's nothing natural about what she did, nothing normal about the life she led. But I can still hear her voice sometimes, when the wind blows in the empty streets at 3am, it makes syllables and phonemes a lot like the noise she used to make. Hollow and cold. Like rocks hitting tin, I still try to dance to the beat they make.

Oh, well, here goes nothing, I ask her to dance, and she smiles and offers her hand. Not the first time, not my first time in this river, but I am still afraid of being carried away in the current. She laughs when I step on her toes, she doesn't strike me, or take me by my balls to teach me a lesson. So I try harder to impress her with my grace. Like an elephant in a ball gown, I am bursting at the seams, she doesn't seem to mind. There's this myth about a sort of Bermuda's Triangle in a woman's eyes, a place where horny men go to die. Well I say, let them rot. If they're unable to truly accept a girl's grace and civility, they don't really deserve it in the first place. So me and her make plans for things others can't understand, I lose sleep in her words and in her father's eyes. And those that are unable to appreciate beauty warn me to be careful. Such pity fires up in me for them, maybe they've never had a real friend. But me and her continue our quest for a world without boundaries, scribbling maps with black crayons and speaking languages that we make up as we go, those fools out there, they can't stop my sunrise. And her brother graces me with his candor, and then is gone again. And her sister settles in for the long haul, all fire and innocence, crafting idols for me from clay and sweat and sugar and dreams.

I figuratively use the word literally: because I literally had a demon in me. But it was passively leached from my veins, with no struggle or fight, and it can never come back. I squirm on the carpet like a man with chlorine in his blood, and she looms over me, head cocked to one side like the bitch she is, only watching my agony, offering no comfort. My mouth runs dry and my skin is wet with sweat, and still she just observes, imbibing my pain like whiskey and my screams like vodka. She smiles a half smiles and poof! She's gone for good now, I hope. But the other two, no three, no four, no five, not six, no seven, no eight. The eight of them all are there now, helping me up and asking if I need a glass of water. They're sturdy, solid, little glimmers of God. I have two eyes but only one heart. And home is the shed it inhabits.