Skeleton Memory

I saw the skeleton in her face. Blue eyes turned into black holes of the dead. A skull in a cave, resting on the long lost path. She sits in front of me now, breathing, moving just slightly. In the left eye I see something strong, in the right, something more caring; as a whole, when my eyes relax, there is something else. Softness.
And the skeleton emerges. And I feel the enormity of death. The ever-present that can shift this space in seconds. Every breath, a precious gift that I never respect. Every tear shed in identification, a wasted moment, a bit of energy expelled in clear ejaculation. But the tears slide down my cheeks. In identification, in understanding, in fear, in relaxation. I see myself, a girl, sitting in a garage, looking at another girl.
Nothing ever has happened.
Nothing ever will happen.
They are looking at each other. They’ve been this way for a while. Thirst, sore limbs. My head feels crooked. My nose drips. The skeleton. What will I feel on my deathbed? Held down, moments from my last breath, will my mind worry about the roommates, the sex, the jealousy? Will I go over and over the pains? The suffering? The weirdness? What will be the regrets?
The wasted time…the wasted time…the wasted energy…the un-given love…the useless ideas and thoughts I used to distract myself from the Real. The light comes. The darkness arrives. Where is my place? My numbers…are they shifting? The body, the vehicle for the unseen, it holds all of the Real in its withering, useless grasp. The kisses, they were wonderful. The beautiful chance to learn something beyond the normal circles of consumption and death.
Why, as I’m alive, as I’m breathing, do I choose to liter the path with the glittering junk of machine waste? The path is silvery and elegant, yet it passes through the most difficult of lands. Through jungles of wicked forms, through the dirtiness of a consumed mind; into the depths of purple sheets and slithering leg-less animals. I crawl, simple and mute. To death, I crawl.
Each day, a chance at something high. And each day, I push us back into the land of machines, pink and brown, pale and slimy…this must be the landscape I desire. The realm of my birth. Ahh, but a voyager in the hollowed space of a small Jewish girl. She cries often. She worries and frowns, finding herself in the strangest of places; where the fog rules the weather, where men love more than once. Where the energy of the city is still palpable in the moist night air.
The woman that laughs, high and explosive. The man that makes her smile, that pushes her into tears. She takes the bait…each time, she takes it and swallows. Diving far, fast, into the murky water, blue and dark. Thick with ocean weeds and colorless fish. I go, in search of mermaids. They told me she was there. Waiting on a golden rock. But it is you, beautiful love, with your black curls and dark knowledge.
Allow me to love you, if I know how. Permit my ugly childish ways, for I know nothing. My death is near, I fear its greatness.
Nothing ever has happened.
Nothing ever will happen.
I fear the nothingness that I sense. My numbers…endless? Or just definite? This body, easily squashable, you know what will remain. I almost grasped it. I stared out the window, no words, no thoughts, just the strangeness that swept over me…the numbers, the unchanging code. Can I surrender? Can I sacrifice myself to understand? Can I let go so I may begin to truly learn? May I keep breathing, so I may try again tomorrow.