Isn’t it great that I’ve been able to continue?
That I’ve been able to pick right back up,
to keep your void filled with plenty of other pieces of hair, lips, and eyelashes,
all connected to fingertips that stroke and scratch and pull and twist better and worse than you ever did.
Mouths, full of disease and words with no meaning;
full of liquid, saliva and alcohol;
full of strong tongues that push in and out,
up and down,
twirling in sick little circles like a goddamn circus act.
I am this goddamn circus act.
Isn’t it great that I’ve been able to get it together?
Thank goodness for paper plans,
for letter grades that distract and solve it all:
all the problems,
all the regret,
all the thoughts and anxiety.
Thank goodness that these plans and classrooms and you and I walk such a close,
tightrope line,
otherwise I might be able to forget you.
Every time I enter that building
(that circus tent)
I know some part of it has touched you.
I know you’ve pounded the same floors with your soles.
I know you’ve touched the same doors with your elbow,
forearm,
and hand.
Every second I spend breathing that recycled air,
I know some part of it massaged your tongue,
deceived your teeth,
and jumped your lips.
Some part of it has swept under your skirt,
through your shoes,
and carried itself down into my body,
just to prove I can’t escape you.
This building is filled with you.
You are this goddamn circus act.
My greatest delusion,
your greatest illusion,
they are one and the same;
they have you to blame.
Sweep your hair, and the crowd follows.
Show your skin, and my pride shatters,
and finds itself torn to match that rip on your shirt where the nail caught,
in the space just below the last rib and above the defined hipbone that my fingers pressed enough times to bruise.
You don’t remember my touch, I can’t remember your words.
If I could see your breath,
if I could see through the paper confetti covering your face,
if I could pick out a single word,
I would trap it and tame it and keep it like those electrocuted elephants.
But all I can see is your costume on every pair of legs,
and my fingers turn to fists when I think of us,
dressed up in our goddamn circus act.
Isn’t it strange:
eight months,
hundreds of places,
hundreds of faces,
and the sun still will not touch me.
Diluted through my layers of cannonball smoke and freakshow fog machine,
light tends to lose its strength;
it tends to wallow in self-pity,
in the knowledge of its own inadequacy.
The haze that is created in its absence is thicker than any cloud,
this thing that surrounds me,
blacker than any midnight room in a basement.
It is the bastard child of light,
diluted through layer upon layer of apathy and self-deprecation;
layer upon layer of loathing,
of ignorance,
of arrogance.
I am digging deeper into this dressing room filled with hairy legs attached to spidery bodies attached to glistening fangs attached to deep,
red eyes that consume without moving.
They know my fear and they rub their thick,
sticky hair across my cheek.
I’m reminded of yours.
I’m reminded we are still running this goddamn circus act.
