marylynnemonroe

Last year, I saw pictures of the house that ruined my dreams. It was a wilder time, when I hadn't yet made arrangements with myself about which morals I would adopt. I'd strike my own face to try and forget what I looked like inside.

I kept trying to write you letters. I told you that you reminded me of making mistakes. I told you I loved you and meant it, I told you over and over I'd never love again, but we knew we were magnets.

This year, I took time to put colors to my feelings. Green was what I felt when I saw your face. Blue was what I felt when the perfect song came on. I tried to assign a feeling to yellow, but ran away from it, as it reminded me of the week-old bruises you'd give me like you were handing out free stickers.

This here is what it feels like the second before vomit. This here sounds like wind slicing by one pane of glass. This here smells like dying.

It had taken only two years to hate your everything. It took a disease to pretend to forgive you. I'll pretend like I don't want to cut my knuckles on your chest anymore. One pane of glass. Wind. Whistle. Gone.

My eyes are burning my heart space. I've spent hours on hard and soft and cold and lukewarm surfaces trying to get my heart to beat slower. You wanted it fast. If my terror-screaming-hurting-aching-"am I dying?" heartbeat could have been recorded, maybe you would listen to it until you died.

Maybe you would listen to it, clenching fists. Maybe you would listen to it, gritting teeth. Listen to it, gripping sheets. Listen to it, walking briskly.

I made shoes out of forgiveness and morale.
(I never wore them around you.)

one: i am counting the reasons why i love you while you sleep. we are breathing in sync. you are answering my questions with better questions. i am sorry, and i shouldn't be, and still we breathe in sync.

two: we are laughing at insignificant things, the way infants laugh at strained faces. we look, and we don't mind the nameless noise. we are talking arrhythmically, shy yet not nervous. we ache, but we are aching together, so we no longer ache.

three: we are sleeping--like timed syncopal episodes that end in us waking up together. we are dreaming. we are making a giant cocoon around ourselves with flesh and hot breath. nothing can touch us. we are titans. we are monsters of earth that cannot be touched. we are scarred, and will continue to be scarred, but still: we cannot be touched.

four: we can talk, and we do talk. we talk about mixing science and magic and curing disease like it was easy. you make obstacles like water, and give me the awareness that i can swim, and i have been able to for so, so long.

five: i am never too tired or angry to tell you i love you. i was told true love was loving someone even when you are angry. i am certain that i have never felt this warmth before, this fire in my heart's largest chamber--not even in utero. you are the box i put my most precious belongings in. you are on my side.

six: they told me last week that my palm is one percent of the surface area of my skin. i put my palms together and run my lips over the cracks to imagine our dreams are there. the other ninety-eight percent is a void--but then i realize it isn't. it is love: unequivocal, unprecedented, unmatched. that is what makes us whole.





en français (desolée pour la grammaire):

raisons pour lesquelles je t'aime: six de l'infini

un: je compte les raisons pour lesquelles je t'aime pendant que vous dormez. nous sommes en phase de respiration. vous répondez à mes questions avec les meilleures questions. Je suis désolé, et je ne serais pas, et encore que nous respirons dans la synchro.

deux: on se moque de choses insignifiantes, les enfants rient de façon visages tendus. Nous attendons, et nous n'avons pas l'esprit du bruit sans nom. nous parlons dans les arythmies, timide mais pas nerveux. nous avons mal, mais nous sommes mal ensemble, de sorte que nous mal non plus.

trois: on dort - comme chronométré épisodes de syncope qui se terminent par nous réveiller ensemble. nous rêvons. nous faisons un cocon géant autour de nous avec la chair et le souffle chaud. rien ne peut nous toucher. nous sommes titans. nous sommes des monstres de la terre qui ne peut pas être touché. nous sommes marqués, et continuera à être marquée, mais toujours: on ne peut pas être touché.

quatre: on peut parler, et nous ne parlons. on parle de mélange science et de la magie et la maladie de guérir, comme il était facile. vous faites des obstacles comme l'eau, et donne-moi la conscience que je peux nager, et je n'ai pu pendant si, si longtemps.

cinq: je ne suis jamais trop fatigué ou en colère de vous dire que je t'aime. On m'a dit vrai amour était épris de quelqu'un, même lorsque vous êtes en colère. Je suis certain que je n'ai jamais ressenti cette chaleur avant, ce feu dans la plus grande chambre de mon cœur - pas même in utero. vous êtes la case, je mets mon biens les plus précieux po vous êtes de mon côté.

six: ils m'ont dit la semaine dernière que ma paume est un pour cent de la surface de ma peau. Je mets mes paumes ensemble et exécuter mes lèvres sur les fissures d'imaginer nos rêves sont là. l'autre quatre vingt dix huit pour cent est un vide - mais je me rends compte qu'il n'est pas. c'est l'amour: sans équivoque, sans précédent, inégalé. c'est ce qui nous rend entier.

in these dreams i am fighting.
i am fighting nothing, viewing the makeshift targets that erupt into flower petals and spinal cords and you.
and you are here but not here, having forgotten me like i asked you to.
i am making rings out of paper.
i am making you into me.
i am trying to think of my favorite artist and my favorite sonata and my favorite daydream and all i see is you.

it is silent now. the kind of silence that lasts so long that you wonder if words ever existed, and if they did, did they mean anything?
i am crying imaginary tears from imaginary eyes into imaginary bullet holes. they steam when they hit flesh. they evaporate and make love hateful, something it should never be but already is.
i am making my hands into bird nests.
i am making you mean and not sorry.
i am floating floating calling.
i see the ripples in your agony.
i am not convinced.

these are the most dangerous words: i love you.
these words make wars, and nobody likes wars, not even the victors. these
words are poison and antidote. these
words are a strict parent. these
words do not forget. these
words burn emotion into brainspace. these
words lack substance. they are too simple and also too difficult. these
words are worth dying for. worth avoiding. these
words are nothing and everything. these
words are a song, but also a scream. never, but almost, easy.

Me: wet eyes. You: dry eyes, wet mouth. We are beating each other, so we are both winning. Your eyes look like that one night I was drunk in that blizzard--walking, hoping. Feels like cold ether filling my lungs. Feels like wanting, maybe love.

I know you don't remember what you needed to tell me, but do you remember how hard it was for me to see you? And then I realized I am you, you are me, and we are grass bits in a meadow. We are arrhythmic overtures. We are tornadoes in the ocean. We are the Bermuda triangle. We are trauma sheers cutting art wires.

And I am a cadaver. I am a cadaver unwilling to control who sees which parts of me. I am surrounded by other people's secrets, exposed. I am an incomprehensible sign that supposedly says "Caution!" I am not the first to dream of the perfect final words. I am not the first to welcome crisis.

You are my favorite broken girl. You are made of the same do-it-yourself materials as I am but you are never a scapegoat. You are a million of the tiniest bones made into fine art. You are a warm breath. You are not confused. You are so alive, and full.

This is what it feels like to slice from sweat to skin to bone to skin to sweat. This is all something I've felt before. This is the most complete answer: love. That is the only answer. That is a tear, a laugh, a scream. Love is the most gorgeous building, and we always laugh when we vandalize it on purpose.

You: laughing. Me: laughing. We are pictures of misfortune before bedtime. We are burn scars of hearts in ribcages. We are veins and arteries. We are laughing at how easy it was to make something so simple so difficult. We are laughing at queens and bastards. We are laughing at laughter.

Suddenly, I feel the moment I saw your tiny wet cheeks hug my bedroom wall. I saw you start to hate me. I wanted to hug you but I also wanted you to burn the dirty skin off of me with your eyes because I know you see that I failed you, and so did he, and you run six years distance away from me. You ran but forgot I would wait.

I am a myriad. You are a fortress. We are perfect, and not perfect. You are everything beautiful. You are a steady heartbeat. You are oxygen. I am excrements. We are both dolls, on a windowsill, watching, ignored.

i.

i am trying to find out why my nightmares are accompanied by the beautiful slave music,

wondering if it would make more sense to hear auschwitz cries.

maybe this jew isn't good enough to hear that level of agony.

ii.

it took his filthy five-second rape semen asphyxiating my skin to realize

that i still have that diaphanous blanket you wove me out of nasty names that detains me from fighting the fight,

and the empty brain space keeps trying to write two-bit symphonies for the gaps.

iii.

there are approximately five apologies i wish i could burn to the ground.

breathe in the beatings one last time until i exhale you into a box of grief you don't even deserve.

i'm sure i'd still find a way to not let go so fast,

let the phantom of misery bombard me still with weddings of dolor and disease.

iv.

it's all numbers now, and i keep forgetting about the pretty house i built as a bomb shelter that you destroyed in your panic

and i'm glad, because it was only a matter of time before i realized

the sign on the front had "asylum" spelled wrong.

v.

i'm irked by your candor!!
i'm crying for your morality!!
have you forgotten how well i lie to myself?!

vi.

and if you ask me next year my name will be "Compact"

and what you think is permeable i will steal from you right back

i'm gonna float through this window, babe, and pass out on your floor,

don't call me but don't leave me and you will hear from me no more.