There are no more metaphors for death, take 2.
There are no more metaphors for Death, no analogies, I have used them all up and so here I am with Death sliding down my sides like a street weary slum rat, all claws and teeth. Gnawing at my sides with saliva, rabies, plague. Death infects me, Death is pathological, Death is deadly. Death menaces me with memories of itself in happier times. It tries to make me look away from my sides now that are torn, bloody, maggot riddled.
Death whispers itself into your ear, but it is never you that dies, no that’s not Deaths thing. Death is a slum rat, a torn down and manky worm but it takes steady bites at the sides of your being. The surrounds, the bits that you need to feel whole but not the bits you need to stay alive. Death doesn’t go for your jugular. Death is a ringworm, a burrowing tick. It takes your blood, until it’s gone. And I think it’s gone.
I have nine years of words for Death. Nine long, slow years. Death’s syllables have well rounded my tongue. Death’s punctuated, savagely between the lines of my eyes. I have seen the words Death likes to use, I have seen Death use them again and again. Death has seasonal whims. Winter rips Death out of my mouth in a violent belch. Summer sucks up Death into grassy banks and too blue skies. I can think of Death when I’m lonely, it has compartments for whimsy.
No one ever told Death a thing or two because Death knows everything, it has seen your insides, met your puss and sores. Death fucks you, you’ve felt it. Or at least you will, that’s what Death says when it’s feeling angry. When Death is sad it holds your hand, it rests its rodent head on your shoulder, and it sighs long romantic sighs.
I once met Death on a quiet night in November, looking down from the second story of a building. I found Death kneeling beside a boy in cowboy boots, stroking his hair as his blood and brains stained the concrete. Death lay down and kissed the young man’s face, Death’s hair matted with the young man’s blood, I thought I saw Death shed a tear for this one, a boy Death might have loved.
But before this I had seen Death slide into the eyes, crawl face down under the skin of a child of 19. I saw Death claw through the corners of his mouth, ripping sinews from bone, staining his teeth with blood. Death reached for me with this child’s hands and left his dent on my skin. Death’s vessel never died, that child counts the minutes of his life, watches the hands Death left behind pick and unpick at the corners of his sores. This child of Death’s has years left yet to remember the stains he caused on the concrete.
I have hated Death for all these years. Found Death and killed it, with machine guns, machetes, the bricks holding up my shelves. I have smashed Death, watched the gore seep to a congealing puddle on my floor. But Death is no slave to circumstance, there is nothing Death will not enjoy. It will wearily pull up its trouser leg and piss in your face. Believe me, get used to Death because Death will never leave.
In the end I know I will wait for Death, hope for Death. Find Death as my mother found it, after too many years of pain. I will gasp and gape, with my mouth wide like a fish like she did, my body contorted like hers was. I will take those last breathes because biology makes me do it because the laws of nature will me to fight. My body will move because it has to but I will stay still inside. I will lie like she did, a still warm thing that used to love, with all my own clothes on but only dead flesh and bones.
Death will make me ashes, Death will make me gone. Death will crawl into the beds of people who have loved me and it will slice open their tongues while they sleep. Their love will wake with a mouth full of blood because Love is no match for Death. Love can only lower its eyes, pat the creases out of its skirt and hope that Death walks by. The streets Love walks, turn dark. The alleys of Love’s winter have Death in them, waiting to wrap its rotten hands around Love’s neck and push Love to the ground. Someone told me Death is beauty but I have seen Death rape Love and there was no beauty there.
Love has no weapons, no teeth. Love sometimes trades faces for photographs, day dreams for memories, until finally after Love meets Death it cannot remember who exactly it was before. Before the alleyways in which Death fucked the life out of Love, Love knew where to go. Love had plans. Love was a street savvy teenager sipping long blacks at Ginos. But now Love’s hands shake, holding onto air. Love titters, talking to shadows. Love has become the old woman on the 86 tram who has forgotten to shower.
Finally, there is only Death. A dictionary full of words to tell it, metaphors to mask it, ways to make it. But Death makes us in the end and words like dog shit stick resolutely to us all, Death put them there, and they always say, I am sorry for your loss.
Death whispers itself into your ear, but it is never you that dies, no that’s not Deaths thing. Death is a slum rat, a torn down and manky worm but it takes steady bites at the sides of your being. The surrounds, the bits that you need to feel whole but not the bits you need to stay alive. Death doesn’t go for your jugular. Death is a ringworm, a burrowing tick. It takes your blood, until it’s gone. And I think it’s gone.
I have nine years of words for Death. Nine long, slow years. Death’s syllables have well rounded my tongue. Death’s punctuated, savagely between the lines of my eyes. I have seen the words Death likes to use, I have seen Death use them again and again. Death has seasonal whims. Winter rips Death out of my mouth in a violent belch. Summer sucks up Death into grassy banks and too blue skies. I can think of Death when I’m lonely, it has compartments for whimsy.
No one ever told Death a thing or two because Death knows everything, it has seen your insides, met your puss and sores. Death fucks you, you’ve felt it. Or at least you will, that’s what Death says when it’s feeling angry. When Death is sad it holds your hand, it rests its rodent head on your shoulder, and it sighs long romantic sighs.
I once met Death on a quiet night in November, looking down from the second story of a building. I found Death kneeling beside a boy in cowboy boots, stroking his hair as his blood and brains stained the concrete. Death lay down and kissed the young man’s face, Death’s hair matted with the young man’s blood, I thought I saw Death shed a tear for this one, a boy Death might have loved.
But before this I had seen Death slide into the eyes, crawl face down under the skin of a child of 19. I saw Death claw through the corners of his mouth, ripping sinews from bone, staining his teeth with blood. Death reached for me with this child’s hands and left his dent on my skin. Death’s vessel never died, that child counts the minutes of his life, watches the hands Death left behind pick and unpick at the corners of his sores. This child of Death’s has years left yet to remember the stains he caused on the concrete.
I have hated Death for all these years. Found Death and killed it, with machine guns, machetes, the bricks holding up my shelves. I have smashed Death, watched the gore seep to a congealing puddle on my floor. But Death is no slave to circumstance, there is nothing Death will not enjoy. It will wearily pull up its trouser leg and piss in your face. Believe me, get used to Death because Death will never leave.
In the end I know I will wait for Death, hope for Death. Find Death as my mother found it, after too many years of pain. I will gasp and gape, with my mouth wide like a fish like she did, my body contorted like hers was. I will take those last breathes because biology makes me do it because the laws of nature will me to fight. My body will move because it has to but I will stay still inside. I will lie like she did, a still warm thing that used to love, with all my own clothes on but only dead flesh and bones.
Death will make me ashes, Death will make me gone. Death will crawl into the beds of people who have loved me and it will slice open their tongues while they sleep. Their love will wake with a mouth full of blood because Love is no match for Death. Love can only lower its eyes, pat the creases out of its skirt and hope that Death walks by. The streets Love walks, turn dark. The alleys of Love’s winter have Death in them, waiting to wrap its rotten hands around Love’s neck and push Love to the ground. Someone told me Death is beauty but I have seen Death rape Love and there was no beauty there.
Love has no weapons, no teeth. Love sometimes trades faces for photographs, day dreams for memories, until finally after Love meets Death it cannot remember who exactly it was before. Before the alleyways in which Death fucked the life out of Love, Love knew where to go. Love had plans. Love was a street savvy teenager sipping long blacks at Ginos. But now Love’s hands shake, holding onto air. Love titters, talking to shadows. Love has become the old woman on the 86 tram who has forgotten to shower.
Finally, there is only Death. A dictionary full of words to tell it, metaphors to mask it, ways to make it. But Death makes us in the end and words like dog shit stick resolutely to us all, Death put them there, and they always say, I am sorry for your loss.
posted by kel at 5:14 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home