most of the time i don’t remember. what it feels like. when a fist collides with a face, the force of it, the power, the crunch of bones, the thick flattening of skin as it spreads underneath hard, sharp knuckles to rip and bleed like an oilspring. i remember what it tastes like, your tongue heavy in your mouth like a dead slug. i remember what it smells like, sweat and blood and fear. but mostly i don’t remember what it feels like.

afterwards, when nursing bruises and wounds, i think back, remembering what my body tells me then: fight, it says. you fool, are you going to let them win? they who laughed at you, they who mocked you secretly, they who said you didn’t matter, they who let you down. fight, you fool. fight as if your life depended on it, as if every breath you take might be your last, as if every ounce of being in you is alive only and for this moment. fight, you fucker. fight until you can’t move, until your nose is filled with blood and broken and you can feel holes in the gaps of where your teeth used to be, fight until every muscle screams in agony and refuses to answer, until your eyes are bloody. but i don’t remember what it feels like.

i only prepare for one fight. every night, the same fight. it is a fight i began from birth. it is not a fight i chose but it is a fight i fight. the fight has no beginning, i only came into its middle, and it has no end. it is a fight we all fight. sometimes i am pitted against you and sometimes you are pitted against you. there are other combinations, an infinite actually but each fight is one fight. it is always one fight. and each fight is different, the fight changes with each failure and each victory, each knockout and each collapse. but each fight is one fight. it is a fight we all fight. there are no winners or losers, only victories and losses, and an infinity in between. the fight has one rule. there is one grand champion. the grand champion cannot be defeated. in the end, he always wins. there is no fighting him. this is the only rule. he appears in our dreams often. sometimes as falling from an airplane, sometimes as alzheimer’s slow, certain forgetting, sometimes as a cold, nauseating, invincible, always proliferating cancer, other times as lethargy, wondrous lethargy that sucks all joy down its black hole of endless hours looking for something you know doesn’t exist. lethargy that turns into something more insidious, a poison seeping through your veins, a toxin fastening itself to your neurons, spreading thoughts that whisper incessantly of expectations and a failure to live up to them, the chains of family, the world and the social contract, the pressure from a society that values the appearance of your physicality over its actual functionality or even your brain, not being good enough,ever. and there he is. the grand champion. in every noose that tightens around a broken neck, every poison that eats through your stomach walls like an acid, every razor that zips down a naked wrist, every 8-ball laced with rat poison, and that last bottle of sweet sweet whiskey that sends that last liver cell crumbling into nothingness. in the end, he (or was it a she?) is there for us all.

the bruise it heals. there is a stinging now and then, just to remind me that its there. but more and more, there is an emptiness, a feeling of missing what was once there. each time, the hole feels bigger, slightly, just slightly. and still i don’t remember what it feels like.

[end]

Come to the door, Ma, and unlock the chain
I was just passin’ through and got caught in the rain
There’s nothin’ I want, nothin’ that you need say
Just let me lie down for a while and then I’ll be on my way

I was no more than a kid when you put me on the Southern Queen
With the police on my back I fled to New Orleans
I fought in the dockyards and with the money that I made
And the fight was my home and any blood was my trade

Baton Rouge, Ponchatoula, and La Fayette town
Well they paid me the moon, Ma, to knock the men down
I did what I did, when it come easily
Restraint and mercy were always strangers to me

I fought champion Jack Thompson in a field full of mud
Rain poured through the tent to the canvas and mixed with our blood
In the twelfth, I slipped my tongue over my broken jaw
And I stood over him, pounded his blooded body into the floor

Well the bell rang and rang, still I kept on
‘Til I felt my glove leather slip ‘tween his skin and bone
And the women and the money came fast, in the days I lost track
The women red, the money green, but the numbers were black
I fought for the men in their silk suits to lay down their bets
Well I took my good share, Ma, and I had no regret

I took the fixed staid hombre with Big Diamond Don
From high in the rafters I watched myself fall
So he raised his arms, my stomach twisted, and the sky it went black
I stuffed my bag with their good money, and I never looked back
Understand me, and Ma, every man plays a game
If you know anyone different, then speak out his name

Well Ma, if my voice, now you don’t recognize
And just open the door and look into your dark eyes
I ask of you nothin’, not a kiss, not a smile
Just open the door and let me lie down for a while

Now the grey rain is fallin’ and my ring fighting’s done
So in the work fields and alleys, I take them who’ll come
If you’re a better man than me then just step to the line
And show me your money and speak out your crime
There’s nothin’ I want, Ma, nothin’ that you need say
Just let me lie down for a while and then I’ll be on my way

Well tonight in the shipyard, a man draws a circle in the dirt
Like I always do, I move to the centre and I take off my shirt
I study him for the cuts, the scars, the pain man no time can erase
I move hard to the left and I strike to the face

These are two somethings from a long, long time back.

There was once a time when I was in love and then when I wasn’t in love and then I was in love again.

Flowers

Flower I gave and flowers you gave
I placed them in a shoebox, you in between a book
Bells rang, teachers walked and students ran
And flowers wilted
Mine in the shoebox and yours in a book
Yours were red and yellow, with petals like thick rays of light
Mine was symmetrical pink
On the roof, our hands would find each others’
Out of their own volition
And intertwine, like knots not undone
And we’d draw together,
Our hips interlocking, until we became conjoined
I wasn’t much taller than you were,
But yet, your head managed to find my shoulder
I remember your tresses, after they’d lost their ruler-edge
How they’d started to curl, like tiny prawns,
Resting on your shoulders like wisps of fine clouds
And my hair grew longer
Unmanaged and uncombed
You never complained.
We drifted, like dead wood on a flowing river.
I lost you and you lost me, to whirlpools of desire.
And you threw away my flowers, my wilted pink flowers,
I kept them, your golden rays,
For I knew, one day, they’d bloom again.
(July 28 2008)

And this one is even older, from a time when smoking marijuana and seeing a girl in a thong meant something else to me.  (Madonna used to inspire.)

the Afterglow

Don’t look at me but don’t turn away. I speak and transcend. My body lies still but I float. High above, ethereal and astounded. Trapped in an endless spiral, my brain continues to turn the same fact over and over again – that girl has nice eyes. Big eyes, that look even bigger with the eyeliner and brown. Beautiful girl with eyes like the desert. Her hips swing as she dances slowly to the reggae beat that the old player in the corner pumps out. Her shaking behind offers me visions of her thong but I’m not interested.

I turn and find it’s hard to. My legs feel like blocks of wood and my arms like branches. My stomach clenches and a strong spasm reverberates through my body. I taste bile.

Someone struggles into me. He grabs my shirt and pukes on my shoes. I’m too dazed to care. He smiles an apologetic grin and turns away to puke on the carpet. I lurch onwards. I have no destination, I’m just moving. In a corner, a few people sit, shooting up. The needle goes in and the head goes back, eyes rolling and spit leaking from the mouth. Spineless and sublime. I don’t go near. I smoke but I don’t inject. Maybe I’m a pussy but at least I’m not stupid.

My legs give out and I fall on the floor. Someone comes over and offers a hand. I hold it and am pulled up. My legs still don’t support me and I fall against the person. It turns out to be the girl, the one with the dead eyes. She holds me easily around the waist and I wonder how she is able to do that. We walk (struggle) towards an end couch. We sit. Her hands move up, towards my chest, tracing a line along my stomach. She leans close. I know what will come next. My marijuana clogged brain doesn’t want to respond but I force it to. I push her away. She looks bewildered but then shrugs and lights up another joint. She passes it to me and I inhale, deeply. The smoke approaches my lungs and my brain does a double take. My stomach tightens and I close my eyes against the inevitable. My head between my knees, I retch. Nothing comes out. Another spasm, another retch and a stream of liquid oozes out. I am disgusted with my own puke. The girl is now patting me on the back and somehow, this comforts me. I grab a shirt that is draped over the couch and wipe my mouth with it. That felt good, to an extent.

I turn back to the girl. She smiles. Her eyes are dead as ever and her smile looks ghostly, as if it was painted on. She leans in again and I have to push her away again. I notice for the first time that she is not wearing a shirt. Maybe I wiped my face with it. She’s not naked but not fully clothed either. I’m confused. Everything is in slow motion. I try to get up but am not able to. The girl is still smoking. Her empty eyes and bare stomach scare me more than the needle ever did.

“Everything sucks,” she speaks for the first time. Her voice low and husky. Not as deep as a man’s but not as soft as a woman’s either. She sticks out her tongue and licks her lips. It’s not a sexual innuendo, rather a nervous habit.

“Yeah,” I manage to croak out. My throat is parched and I am in desperate need of water. But the high still hasn’t worn off and I’m apathetic to everything.

“I don’t know you,” she says and I realise that I don’t know who she is or where I am. I look around but the hazy smoke, bad lighting and closed windows make it impossible to distinguish anything. I squint, trying to see something. I’m blinded.

I lean back, surrender and give up. It’s overwhelming. The girl beside me has finished her joint and is leaning back too. The taste of bile is still strong in my mouth. I close my eyes. Sleep comes like a thief, slowly and stealthily. I am enveloped by the black.

The room is littered with beer bottles, cigarette ashes and stubs and syringes. Someone is resting on my chest. I blink and find that it’s the girl from the night before. She stirs slowly and lifts her head. For a moment, she too seems bewildered. Then her eyes find my face. I get a clear look at her face for the first time. Her dark hair falls lankly around her face, surrounding it in a cocoon. Her lips are full and even after a night of wasted pleasures, they’re rosy. For a moment, I can’t take my eyes off of her. She smiles slowly, a small hesitant smile in sharp contrast to yesterday’s hip-shaking, thong-wearing hippie. Beautiful girl with eyes like the desert.

(November 14 2006)