Today I am Bleeding Profusely

As I lifted myself up from the concrete floor,

on pale, trembling arms

I looked down and beheld

my face silhouetted in blood.

 

Unable to stand yet,

I sat on the floor

and touched my hand to my nose

the void where it used to be.

 

A new hole in my head

from which sprang warm air

and a warm liquid

that ran ceaselessly down my upper lip.

 

You let go of his face

and crept to my side

“Are you OK?”

in the voice of a shy child.

 

I paused.

I thought.

I stood up and watched my nice white shirt

quickly turn red.

 

“Yes. I’ll be fine.”

“Look at yourself, you’re bleeding all over the place”

My brain became very warm

I was breathing through the hole in my head

 

and slow, steady breath

bubbled up from the blood

where my nose used to be.

A bit of bone shifted beneath your foot.

 

“Oh god, please go to the hospital or something, please, oh god”

You held my face, but not to kiss it.

To watch my lips drip

and the color in my eyes fade.

 

I was bleeding all over your nice white dress.

“Please don’t worry. I hate it when you worry.”

All over your nice white dress.

“I’ll be fine, I swear.”

 

So I walked to seventh period

and collapsed by the door.

The bus had already taken you

so very far away from me.

 

There is a new crowd now

of masquerade faces

panting and yelling

rolling me away

 

Beneath a bright light,

They yell and they shout

and they sweat as they run

I can’t see what they’re so worried about

 

I’ll be fine, I swear.

Self-Inflicted

It’s another one of those nights.

I can’t sleep because I’m thinking of you. About telling you the truth. I’m thinking about last year’s Valentine’s Day.

About the cement below me and the rain above me and how i was crying and asking nobody “why why why” and the on-looking strangers saying “he’s lost his mind”. I did lose my mind. Because I was convinced I had lost your heart.

And lately I’ve been trying to stop prolonging the pain by doing exactly that.

I think it worked.

I saw a photo of you today. A photo of your wonderful smiling face.

It no longer warms my heart.

Voice

I realized today

I love the sound of your voice

I realized today

I will never hear it again

Wish

I no longer wish to love you

Escape

Into the light of truth

Into honest

and sincere

delight

*

Into honest

and sincere

and New

life

Little Robot iii

On the way to the subway station I realized how beat up the little guy was.
His antenna was crooked and his joints would squeak, he was flaky with rust and his dim eyes would flicker on and off.

But his mind seemed as sharp as could be.

“Three dollars and twenty-two cents” he said in the quiet, careful voice of a shy child.

I had just pulled out a pocketful of change at the ticket kiosk and was amazed. Not only by the immediate prowess of the little robot’s mind, but by the fact that up until that moment, he hadn’t said a word.

As I was buying my ticket, he spoke up again.

“Can you buy a ticket for me, too?”

“But you are a robot. Robots do not need tickets to ride the train. Only humans do.”

“Please?”

I could not resist when he looked up at me with those big glass eyes.

*

At North Hollywood Station, I departed from my friends and said my goodbyes, and my little robot and I climbed into my father’s van, where my father apprehensively asked who the kid in the costume was.

“He is my robot. I found him at a thrift store.”

“Why does he look so sad?”

My little robot only stared blankly at the window, at his own reflection cast in the glass over the amassing clouds and the first raindrops
of spring.

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4:11 AM

And the real world

has officially

gone

to bed