voices from the carnival

In the beginning

**

A man on stilts walks by, laughing maniacally.  An obviously drunken clown follows,  playing some sort of musical instrument.

"That about sums it up," my friend says, and I nod.

**

In the end

**

A woman walks by, dressed in crappy stuffed animals and almost nothing else, face askew.  Her navel glints like a diamond in the middle of the Void

I am falling

Leather Face:

(His eyes are changing, he has forgotten what he was taught to say so many years ago)

In this climate of absolute despair

Despair is absolute

Hold onto this

She: Walks on by

They: Walk on by

Everyone walks on by

Me and Leatherface look at each other and smile

THIS IS IT

Two kids are pushing an old lady in a wheelchair.  Their black hair shines in the sun and they stop and watch the game.

"Wanna play?" I ask, and they shake their heads in unison.

"Got no money."

And I want to pull it all down

pull it all down

walk away

the sun

Why am I so inclined to suffer?
I plug my nose and stuff socks in my mouth so that I cannot breathe
spit them out, panting and gagging
Slicing my shoulders with a razor blade so that no one will see
that I am a coward

I smoke until I vomit
The C-word not applicable anymore
I exorcised that demon and it crawled back inside
but sits in the corner, bored

Why am I so inclined to lose?
I lose everything I have, give it away, even after much thought
I want someone to rip out my insides,
turn me inside out. I see myself on street corners and think this is the only way
I will be happy, with nothing
This is calculated loss

I am in and out of darkness
This is the way it has to be for now

fear

Sometimes my heart is dark as night.  I step out of my body, watching the girl on the bed, pillow over her head, shaking like a bag of bones.

This fear recreates me.

I step outside, feet barely touching the clouds of snow that hang around like thugs on a streetcorner. I am warm but know that I shouldn't be.

This fear recreates me.

I look inside windows and see people staring at televisons. I watch a woman lean over her kitchen sink with her hands full of bubbles, weeping.

This fear recreates me

As I smooth my static, ghostly hair from my face a child plays silently with toys that talk back but don't say the words he wants them to.  He is weeping.

This fear recreates me

And curtains close, and lights shut off and I am born again.

in safeway sometimes the music kills the mood

when i leave my house i am someone else

arms wider, chest open, waiting

captivated by assholes on bikes

breathing the stench of men who don't have to fight to be

choking on words in safeway forgetting

forgetting always forgetting to turn down the music in my ears

people stare

can of coke in my pocket, lungs full of streetnoise

duck down when police roll by

i live here

forget that i live

forget where i am

in safeway sometimes the music kills the mood

i wind down in the fierce cold fucking place where i live

i wonder what is in my throat, talk to my insides

fuck it i say, come up if you have to

i dont know these people

the man in the corner stares at me

i put my hood up

open my eyes a little wider

exhale

A Beautiful Gift

He is staring at me. The nicotine stains on my fingers.. my hair, which he finds amusing. I look back at him and wonder how he can wear a wool sweater in this kind of heat. His eyes are gummy, and I ask him if he has been to see a doctor lately.

He coughs long and hard, painfully, clutches his chest and tells me that he hasn't, because he feels like faith healing is the only thing that can help him at this point. He asks me for a cigarette and I pass one to him.

"You've never been hurt," he says, still studying me, and I wait for him to continue but he doesn't. I ask him what he means, and he repeats himself. In my mind I see myself in my bedroom as a child, and even now, rocking back and forth. The eternal me, hurting. I see all of the ways, all of the times that I have been humiliated, abused.

And I smile. "I've been hurt," I say, and want to tell him how but when I see his shaking hands I can't. I lean against the fence.

"... But I'm happy to be alive." He smiles at me and I take a deep breath, because I mean what I said. I let that happiness swell in my chest and feel it for a minute or so while we smoke in silence.

What a beautiful gift.

My own Eyes

"How are you, son?"

The voice was that of an older relative, a man

and I sparkled like a star for a moment



My dad looked at me and shrugged

"This is one of my girls," he answered.

Inside I felt a meteor hit my heart

I was eight years old

My chest still flat, my body long and lanky

my hair licking at my ears in waves that wanted to be.



Later I lay on my back in the grass and looked down at my body

There was a bump there, I saw it for myself

I let the moonlight hit my eyes and carry me away



Still later...



"This is what it feels like to kiss a boy," I told her, and the others stared

when I kissed her on the lips, my eyes closed but twinkling

so soft

When I opened them again the girls looked away and I did too

scuffed my feet against the floor and bit my lip till it bled

I walked home as if in a trance



On the way

A voice came from under my shoe

"But you're not a boy."

My polka-dot blouse giggled nervously



But later on I took them off

threw them in a heap in the corner of my room

I kept my underpants on

grabbed a sock from my drawer and opened up the blinds



My own venetian eyes drank in the stars outside my window

Beautiful Child

Beautiful child,

I tied your umbilical cord with a piece of red yarn

a tiny scarlet bow that was soft,

so soft on your sweet velvet skin

You looked up at me with liquid eyes and I knew that you knew



that my own cord was severed long ago

before I taught myself to breathe.



Beautiful child,

I handed you to your mother as soon as her eyes were open

eyes like yours, only wiser

She played with your toes, watched them turn pink

a technicolour message of hope



I knelt at your feet,

dressed in my finest rags.



I opened my mouth to speak

but you reached out your tiny hand to silence me

I didn't have to tell you

about the moment the world turned dark.