purple

i posted this poem in friendster sometime in early 2007.  the post was originally entitled "a phase from the past."

 

you could interpret this in several ways, my dear reader, but it's not a psychotic rambling, that's for sure.  this was inspired by a series of events that spawned a dead pinkie fingernail, believe it or not.  maybe i shouldn't have included this paragraph in this entry in the first place, and leave it up to you to make sense out of this piece.  but i included it anyway, so what the hell, right?

 

this is dedicated to my friend, P.  i apologize, as there's still no definite guitar accompaniment for this piece - something hazy-sounding might be appropriate.  maybe i need to be in an altered state of consciousness to figure it out - i don't really know for sure.

 

 

 

purple

 

 

the big bang of your car's door

nearly severed this finger.

 

i bled

without blood.

spitting,

i left

without

saying anything.

screaming did not even occur to me.

 

now, i’m telling you how it stings.

it stings

every five seconds.

every five seconds,

i complain like a drunk.

i am being redundant,

i am redundant,

this is redundant.

 

purple fingernail will not be pink.

 

if last night ended with laughter,

we would be somewhere else.

if last night was an accident,

this would be unsaid.

 

but it did not,

and was not.

 

if i gave you the last one,

these words would be gone.

they would be spaces

in some tree,

some tree that accidentally

became paper.

they would not be

if you managed

to laugh last.

it’s just that

i didn’t want to give it up,

the last laugh, i mean.

 

and so it went.

 

shouldn’t have tried

to cover your mouth,

but it’s too late,

 

the door caught me  

on my way out.

 

it looks black

but it does not mean it’s black.

i’m pretending it’s beaten up.

 

it’s dead,

it’s dead!

but i don’t seem to get it,

i don’t get it.

i don’t take it.

 

they say the dead can’t feel.

bleeding doesn’t mean

blood-spitting.

 

you don’t need      

blood to bleed.     

 

scars need wounds,  

healing needs affliction,

like people need fiction. 

 

faceless,

this scarred finger, faceless.

this little scar is faceless.

a scar in search of a face,

obscure, ignored

does it matter?

 

scary, these hidden wounds.

they are not accidents,

they are not accidents.

but futility’s reinforcements.

 

 

mic
october 8, 2003