Afterthought

I wanted to wear my rosary beads the first time I slept with you but I didn't have mine with me. Luckily your dusty bible on the bedside table made up for it. What is it about defiance of all that is holy that begets human desire but pre-empts emotions? The sheer brilliance of our plan is made up of shams, something which Maureen warned me about. There is no upside or downside. I feel - I feel - that it was an act of spite, all the dead weight in the air and thinking about the bodies that were slain in the same spot before me. I do not pronounce it as acts of cruelty, merely acts of cowardice. One feels small in the eye of grander catastrophes, my woes are but the scratch of a world that is unfolding from your (un)doing and unbeknownst to even the smallest of your mind. Who cares about your achievements (I assure you I did not) when your purposes did not impress, only unabashed at best

Several questions worth examining include:

Are names important?
Are bodies burnt by the sun, cracked from winds of the Mediterranean still worth exploring?
Is there decorum in our minds?

Your sins are as great if not greater than mine, at least my sighs were negligible acts of repentance / do not lie to me or I will fuck you up, the end of the era is near and for all the grand illusions you plan to conspire I wish you none the best

perhaps your only action is to perjure yourself for a Greater Cause

I Find It Hard to Say Goodbye

in mississippi we were god-fearing people, when your father died you brought me to his grave that read : "forgetful not forgotten" i laughed inappropriately in the wake of His Greatness. I left you since - you dead-eyed child, o lover of my soul, far too kind and gentle

time! is! immortalized! you tell me, I do not believe such lies in face of The Great Truth and important words will be not forgotten so easily, look at me look at what you've destroyed in me? then tell me about time and your bullshit. When you reach the gates of Heaven you will learn the lessons I have taught you

The Rapture

is here. your dying words are: "my hands are bound I cannot save you...... please save yourself" I licked your salty tears off your face so I have not lost you entirely, before I cease to exist choose I expected too much from someone who sacrificed too little. i am thus a matyr of my pride, we can only exist at one point infinitely:

"time is running out my wonderful"

(our father in Heaven)

"kneel before the light and the Glory"

(hallowed be Thy name)

"do not leave me please"

(Your Kingdom come)

"choose wisely"

(your will be done)

"past,"

(deliver us from evil)

"present,"

(LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION)

"or future"

(darkness)

The Unbecoming

Traditions are hard to break, but I grow older and words get harder. Nonetheless this is a feeble attempt:  (do not forget that I am selfish and I am a liar)

JANUARY 

January is the Unbecoming, the more I know the more distance I feel - 

FEBRUARY

What is relief but unexpected joys, cold winds/late night that I have learnt to forget. There was snow and a couple, and there was me. I saw you a week after, it was very comforting (that's all I can say that you understand). Good news abound, I am glad. 

MARCH

Many small and painful wonders, although I wish it wouldn't stop. Forgetting then remembering is both a blessing and a curse, and then it starts: the Absence. 

APRIL/MAY/JUNE/JULY

Illness, fun, sun / summer, someone getting on a plane back from a faraway land and I no longer know. Art, lots and lots of art. 

AUGUST 

joie de vivre 

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

What is it that you seek that I seemingly have? 

NOVEMBER

I cradled your dead body in arms in a pool of sticky blood in the dead winter. I almost started crying. You weren't really dead, except that you were as good as dead. The glaciers stood still as heroic witnesses as I valiantly slayed your betrayal, I silenced the hollow gaps that ached of nostalgia and I savor the glory from this act of cowardice (but the only one that I know) 

DECEMBER

(what now) I wish: I was special, and that I stopped the car with the brakes and screamed at you for hiding, for being so elusive even as years past, when I first not-met you. For courage and your ignorance, so I can leave and if at once your life crystallizes into regret I will be heartless and fearless so that the last name you think of is mine and the only that you remember 

The Makings of an Empire

Fall 196x

I believe in retribution; I believe in retributing and retributed. Henry is the devil and I am his temptress though I did not set out to be so. I unleash the sufferings of all my wretched emotions, only to confront one truth: time is made up of memories waiting to be forgotten, Anneliese is a name tucked behind an ear, quickly brushed away by amorous strides. I cry but my name is now Victoria [vic-toh-ree-ah, the choir boys sing in unison beneath the hammerbeam roof] and Henry no longer needs me.

Time is made up of memories waiting to be forgotten
Time is made up of memories waiting to be forgotten
Time is made up of memories waiting to be forgotten

Scientific Expeditions (pt 1) and A Journal Entry Untitled

Specimen 1:

Dislikes glutinous rice.

Specimen 2:

Enjoys cold pizza, right out of greasy box.

Specimen 3:

Ex-smoker. Tastes like youth when kissed.


~

Winter 19xx

Everything unwinds, I am the madwoman Henry sees in his nightmares. I scream and terrorise my neighbours, I broke the teacups and I am mad. Sundays are the worst: I feel the uncontrollable need to be near Henry, with him like a petulant child who won't shut up. My toes cringe from shame and I cannot help but feel exhausted, exhausted to see what power Henry wills over me and my fight against his. I win his respect but he ridicules me, taunts me with his presence and when he leaves I feel defeated with an absence that leaves a gaping hole, not knowing what madness is like. Loving Henry is tedious and enriching, so much hate and so much passion- Janice tells me it's a privilege. But is it a privilege in loving in between silences that tortures me at leisure?

Perhaps I seek too much, but there is need to hear Henry tell me: Anne, you have a most beautiful mind! then I am satisfied, pleased that he sees me the way I want to. Tomorrow I will see him, face him, but I must not mention my terrible need for him when he leaves. He will interpret this as desperation. No woman should be such, unless -- (torn, illegible writing) 

"My name is Monica Rose"

I think of sentences

before------ they
disappear co-
mpletely
.

Waiting is a tribute but what changed your mind? Was it the Great American Dream and Californian sunshine / I have spent the years unable to shed -- a tear -- , there is nothing wrong with being young and ruined beyond imagination.

*

Quieter and quieter still my body convulsed with fear and electricity (did she do that and was I her replacement) I was a deranged woman and they call me Monica, Mon(ster) and our shadows froze midway like an ugly unfinished setenc-

.

My sacrifice would be worth it you had promised, I had barely remembered. I am enraged by my dreams, I awoke to the silk of the moonlight to find that I have emptied the contents of what is made of me, finding further still that infinity is dispossessed at the thought of my illness and lacklustre beauty -oh envious grace, Janice - the trick is to imagine a truth even I would believe: perfection would be more than a namesake and our names glorified in the battlefields of the victorious. The pride and my lungs, enough to sustain our titles as the Kings of Kings and lo and behold!: even the whores cannot help but feast their eyes on our Greatest Creation, we tell our royal subjects as they now become that peace is amongst us and we shall reign till Kingdom comes- then I tell you, my love I will forsake you and leave you and what shall you say to that?

Almost Impossible

Almost impossible is like asymptotes approaching zero and you can spend your whole life waiting for the final countdown but the closest you get to is probably going to be zero point zero zero zero zero zero zero zero........ almost impossible is mostly waiting for things and seasons to stay permanent, frozen in time - the fond memory of the Aegean sea and jasmine volcanic ash, peeling layers of skin like an onion, going to museums. You are almost impossible:

(to love,

to be loved,

to greet, to the moon and back)

I now understand the consequences, but the suspension of denial still hangs stiff in the air, the same way I grasp for air when the air is dense during winter with the heater on maximum. The aversion of reality is obvious, the almost impossible descends by announcing its arrival through painful but unavoidable moments. Through hellenic civilization my eyes roam like those of Dr T. J. Eckleburg and there is no glory in these pastimes, only a vague sympathy and an irreparable sadness that you have left with the happiness you document time and again. Is this a test? Or is this bureaucratic power play- I never underestimated your power but know that power begets will and you are a man with both. The sailor returns after a voyage and I refuse to run to sea, because there is no modesty because this is as we both know and silently acknowledge: a travesty of its own kind.

Imagine an earthquake in the snow and in a foreign land, you carve out a hollow grave for grief and I too understand (I should say I tried) what it meant to you but never quite enough.

I accept the almost impossible.