a long december (na na na naaa)

____If you think that I could be forgiven...
____i wish you would

_______Counting Crows







2 December 2008, Amy Sahba
courtesy of Every Morn and Eve

it does seem to curve back onto itself like a wave, doesn't it? december 2006. december 2007. december 2008. like folding a piece of paper so the edges meet. put a hole through it, there you are. can't tell one from the other. the numbers drift away, you're left with the ostinato: december december december.

today is the 11th of december. i didn't realize it was december until today. december 12th 2006 was the worst day of 2006. december 15th 2007 was the worst day of 2007.

the worst days of 2008 are already behind us. i sit here almost the same man. (the gash on my thumb is healing. when i look at it, i can't see into myself anymore. i can't see the redness of my insides, like having cut myself a new eye throat navel. i had hoped to grow tulips and midwinter mornings and first-kisses out of it... but it appears the shaman sold me the wrong potion). i wear thick Ray Ban reading glasses, that's changed. the faulty eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg.

i fear less. hope less. expect less. demand less. speak less.

i am lonely in the same quantity. i worry the same amount.

i am more stoic. more certain of uncertain things. more moved by music. my hands are more scarred. even more homeless.

*___*___*

dear 2009,
i would like to assume i've paid my dues for two-years now, and you must be something brilliant waiting to happen, but that's a naivety i can't afford to cling to. years are not good because antecedent ones were bad. years are years the way rocks are rocks. certain and simple and plain and are their own nature. you will be whatever it is you were made to be. big or small, meaningful or not, decayed and rotted on the inside, or full of humid tropical days that make everyone but me smile. i simply don't care about you. you go on and roll the way gravity drags you. (na na na naaaa),
when you arrive, don't say hi to me, we're not gonna be friends. you're just gonna be in the same vacinity as me. but you're only for one year, and i have to live with your memories forever after. that's what i hate about you. you come, make a mess, and leave the world to clean up after you. i hate your kind (seconds and minutes and years and moments and fractions and heartbeats) (i like things that alleviate you, or momentarily pause you, or mess with you, like love-making, which is putting you in a wheelie-trash-bin and rolling you down a hill, or driving too fast at night with the windows down so you get dizzy and can't tell sunday from inertia).
whatever. see ya when you get here.

q.


*___*___*

i sit and watch rain hit the ground. i'm more concenrned with how it changes... the geanology of puddles. alterations of sound. i am alone, resting my hands, which burn, and my muscles, which occasionally spasm. outside there's lightning. spasm. more rain. the pitch of the sound changes a little. (burning). lightning but no thunder, just a single strobe effect. an epileptic driving home holds his breath and pulls over just in case. (spasm) (i think of it as a misplaced heartbeat. a little contraction in my bicep instead of my right ventricle. i'm all mixed up inside nowadays). the puddles have built up nicely, now i see ripples in them. there's one that's growing slowly brown. the others haven't assumed colors yet, they're still phantasms. i spend a few moments thinking if i should self-incise myself, and empty out all the old luggage while i still have time. lightning with no thunder. i look up. boooooom. oh. there it is. i listen to the rain, see if it has anything to contribute. no. not right now, she's reciting her 12 times-tables. i hear the grinding of a machine come to a halt. it is the overture, it's still only the 11th. then i realize, it's the tractor, they're done for the day, the rain means they have to stop. we're done for the day mate, can't work in the rain someone says to me. i ignore it, the rain is singing Orfeo ed Euridice, i am trying to decide if i should look back or not. memory, my sweet Euridice, which if i turn back for, i'll be lost forever for. (the sound of boots through mud as the workmen start abandoning their beasts to recline in mud and wash their faces with open-palms. (in Africa, it rained once, we couldn't go home, there were floods. we sat in a small elevated hutt. the other children stripped and jumped in, it came up to their chests. they sang and used little plastic buckets to splash each other with yellowed muddy water. i looked at my dad who was squatting. his eyes said no. cholera. i nodded. a child's sadness knows no bounds. i watched the other children play.
______i realize i'm looking at Euridice, i turn away, look back at the tunnel's end up ahead. mumble a few words to myself, and kick the rocks lining the path out of Hades. i saw you look back kid i hear behind me. Eff you, no you didn't. (i kick another rock). (play it tough, that sometimes works) (i hear a violin). i'm not sad, but i can't retain so much of it without it sometimes slipping through.