Porcelain

There are a lot of ghosts in this bathroom. Not so much the real ones, least that I know of. No, it's just memories and echoes of sound, buried in the pipes, leaking from the faucets. Dreams like videos we watch in the mirror. Crushed under thousands of feet on this tiled floor. Checkered. Like we're all just pawns.

I'm alone. That's when it scares me the most. A large, cold, windowless room. No sign of life. No sign of where I came from. No sign of where I'm going. This bathroom could be anywhere. I could walk out and realize I don't know who I am anymore. All because this great void has me by myself. It's a shadowless predator waiting to create horror films.

I stare at the mirror, face to face with myself. Whoever that is. It's funny, I'm so scared of walking out into the light of life and discovering something's changed and yet here I am searching in a piece of glass for some constant, some answer. I don't have anything to change. I trace the lines of my cheek bone, the shadows around my eyes, the corners of my lips. I can look and look but no matter what I do the picture doesn't make sense. It's strange and yet so familiar.

I don't like my eyes staring at me. Laughing at how impossible it is for me to get out of here and never look back. They want me to stay and examine for hours. To always second guess. It drives me crazy. I punch the glass. It gives more easily than I had expected. My face is covered in a spider web. There are red rivers slipping over my knuckles. I look down at my sliced hand, then back at the mirror. I let out a breath.

I turn on the faucet and let it wash everything away. I hear those echoes now, all those voices that came and went. The laughter, the moaning, the screaming. Blood wiped off the floor. Vomit wiped off the mouth. Scraps of toilet paper floating onto the tiles. Shoes smudging it all together.

The tears well up right about then. It's funny because we're not supposed to feel sad when we are. We're supposed to feel sad when we've got a reason. But I don't. Honestly, I don't. Not one the rest of the world could pin down and label as a reason to feel so crummy. I just can't shut out all those people. Floating through. Balloons in the wind, one by one becoming airless. Ghosts.

The Mirror Cracked From Side to Side

I woke up to the setting sun
For you to say my world was done
Run home, run home

I went home to find oblivion
Painted in faces of porcelain
Cracked from side to side
I didn't do it, I didn't do it

So many excuses buried
let me find them and wrap them up
Tiny presents just for you, just for you
Too many fraying strands
Life strings breaking up
broken blue

I fell asleep to a quaking earth
For you to haunt my dreams from birth
Come back, come back

I came back to find a trouble light
Screaming give me back the night
Tainted for evermore
I didn't do it, I didn't do it

So many lands buried
Can you find them? Mottled stones
Crushed in cardboard boxes, paper zoo
Too many open hands
Blessings bleeding bones
Red and blue

So many breathless buried
I didn't do it, I didn't do it
Broken blue
So many haunted buried
Red and blue
I didn't do it, I didn't do it
Just for you
I swear

3:00 AM Dreaming

It was like all I wanted was for the sun to come up and erase these memories with a landscape of new lies. As if somehow this darkness was too peaceful, too real. I thought I could get past this losing and this disappointment if one more day came and laughed at me in all its warmth and brilliance. Maybe I was right, maybe that daylight would pull me through and drag me along step by step. But I couldn't make it. I was only half way through the night before I needed the sun to fool me, to let ignorance be bliss- or at least indifference. Instead I had the moon glaring at me from her hell hole sky, accusing me of all my disregards and failures. I had the stars begging me to lie with them. I felt like I had little choice. I could not continue moving through each day disappointing people, disappointing the animals and landscapes I vowed to save. I just couldn't do it all and everyday I was hurting more than I was helping. And everyday my heart was growing colder. My mind was screaming at me, crying out to my soul, taking everyone's twisted lies and ripping them into tiny shards of ice that stabbed into my core. I couldn't deal with it any more. I walked into the warm air and found the highest place I could. The stars seemed a lot closer. A gentle breeze caressed my cheek but left a waft of cheap smoke and car exhaust polluting its maternal embrace. To hell with you, I whispered. And then I jumped.

That Day

I was drowned before I was sunk
Gone before I was leaving
Hollow before I'd been emptied
Breathless before I quit breathing

In the Ocean

In the ocean I saw her
A frail wisp of a wave
A silver bodied dolphin
That I forgot to save
I saw her in the ocean
I wish I hadn't though
A blackened hollow apple
Frozen in the snow
In the ocean I did see her
I swear it to be true
A golden haloed angel
That fell into the blue
I did see her in the ocean
So many miles away
A dingy brown eyed gypsy
That I once turned away
I look for her in the ocean
The part of my soul lost
A sickly whitened memory
That to the sea I tossed
In the ocean I look for her
A fallen shooting star
A purple midnight aster
That I left on the tar
In the ocean I found her
A crimson coated shell
A keepsake from a rainy walk
That from my pocket fell
I found her in the ocean
Grey she was to my despair
My bright lightning beauty
That had lost all her hair

Shallow Hearts

I stared at the Christmas card emotionless and not really absorbing the message sent. It was kind, to be sure, but it was unwarranted. Then there was the whole self-centered note that was too much in contrast with the generosity of the holiday season. I looked at the final words in carefully-scrawled red pen: "P.S. Please tell me what you do with this gift." I turn the card over, grab one of the many pens around and write in messy black: "Due to the recent economy 20 bucks was not enough to pay for paper or postage. I am in fact lucky to have this pen. As for the McDonald's coupons- they do very little to feed a vegetarian without a car. Thank you for your yearly contribution to my well being. Merry Christmas." I then reseal the envelope and drive it back to the post office- dropping the meaningless twenty dollars and coupons into a donation box for kids who actually need them. I tell the man that a letter had arrived in my mail box that was not for me. I'd never heard of that man in my life. It was obviously some mistake. He says they'll send it back to the return address. I go home for a dinner of stuffed chicken. It was the best meal I'd had in a long time.

Bedtime Story

The cat didn't understand why it couldn't go sailing. It couldn't swim well but that was a skill a number of sailors lacked. It knew all about ships and it liked water well enough but every time it asked a captain if it could join the crew the man shook his head and nudged it aside. Their boats didn't have any rats, they were small vessels for delivering cargo and were always kept exceptionally clean. The cat was becoming increasingly depressed and mewing at any passerby on the docks. "I just want to go sailing" it said. It was by a park and there were little toy sail boats gliding through the water. It glared in envy at the imaginary passengers under the fluttering white sails that looked so much like the wings of the dove it caught yesterday. The cat pounced. It fell into a downpour and slept shaking on someone's doorstep. In the morning it was sunny. A woman came out and chased it away. It was hungry. A little girl put out a can of tuna and watched it. The cat didn't let her touch it. The can was only half finished when a mongrel appeared and chased the cat away. Then the cat remembered it wanted to go sailing. It sat at the dock as the last boat drifted away in the sunset. The cat curled up in the sky and left one eye open in case the dog returned. The crescent of the eye glowed in the reflection of the street lamps. The sailors blessed it for the light it brought into the night. The cat never got to go sailing.