. . . o n e . m o r e . t i m e . . .

pick it up where i left off: detente

8pm on the last night of the year: feels like i should be somewhere else, anywhere but here. i'll say the countdown and watch the ball drop on satellite television and be in bed by 10:00.

i've used all my passion on the glorious speeches; now i've nothing left for the cause.

can't help but feel like it's been a waste of my time to keep up with the folks back home. i stopped being a part of their lives a long time ago. it's time to start over, get away from the blank stares, break the plastic off a new calendar and contemplate the empty squares.

is this year waiting to knock me down or wrap me in its warm embrace? i've got solutions, got some resolutions, so get me the hell out of this place.

this isn't home. i'm going home.

*****

that white house on the corner looks so innocent, with wrought iron railings dressing up the bleak cement stairway. our pictures on our walls and windowshades to hide secrets and skeletons that lie on the other side. our door is always unlocked, our porchlight's always on. stop by for a minute and you'll be here until dawn. re-arrange the furniture and wax the hardwood floors: welcome to our housewarming party! take your shoes off at the door.

leave your wings and halo at home. break out the 151. welcome to our housewarming party, hope you're having fun.

that white house on the corner is now stained with a reputation that's seeping into the floorboards and soaking into the carpet. it's no concern of ours, we've paid the deposit to cover the damages and scrub out all the leftover bullshit.

leave your wings and halo at home. we don't know the meaning of sorrow. welcome to our housewarming party; don't bother to confess tomorrow.

the cigarette butts pile up quickly on the walkway in the snow and our living room is filled with people i don't even know. empty, full, half-something bottles coats...hats and purses, bags and boots...it all seems fairly tame but something darker's taking root. Faith is for those with a lack of will, and there's something comforting about not knowing where to look. i'm passing all the warning signs that say not to waste my trust on you but i gave up on myself when i walked through the door of this white house on the corner.

*****

look at her...isn't she wonderful? so cynical, chilling, beautiful. carelessly intelligent, and carefully confident. she's a size two but that isn't small enough, she shows us photos of how much skinnier she was. but she pretends she doesn't really care, of course she doesn't!

she chooses her favourite pen to write deep and meaningful poems about the men she "loves". don't look her directly in the eye or else you might be the next one to have your i's dotted and your t's crossed.

she's been through pain: that's her divine lisence to be condescending and complain about everything. she entertains dreams of something great but does little more than contemplate. she waits. she shouldn't have to move, everything comes when she calls.

she craresses her next victim, coaxing him to taste her bitter opinion of life off her lips. she spreads her disease. dot your i's and cross your t's. say your prayers and hope there's a cure.

she sets her sights. she inks her quill. she dots her i's, crosses her t's. she shoots to kill.

i close my eyes. i can't watch.

*****

looks like another night of losing myself on fifth street, searching once again for that starry night above. how was i to know the clouds would roll in so quickly? silly me, i was naive to think that it was love you wanted.

and your light is never on when i walk by, so i go home to sleep in my bed. alone.

i can't just let myself in like her because you haven't given me the keys to your world. and it's been made painfully clear to me what i have to do to get them but i'm just not that kind of girl.

so i'm glad your light is never on when i walk by, otherwise i may surrender myself and never go home.

so i'll stop wishing for that starry night above...silly me, to think that it was love you wanted from me.

*****

all the snow covered roads of town lead away from your failed attempt at a dramatic exit. you're feeling more drastic as the snow falls down. it's a metaphor for your life that dies at your pencil point as you write it in a journal meant for someone else to read. tomorrow, you can tell us all about it, maybe then someone will feel sorry for you.

but this night's revelations linger on the tense new morning air, and i still haven't slept in an attempt to make sense of backporch confessions that caught me off guard. i feel about as empty as the bottles lying everywhere, and i've got no more sympathy left to spare. i grab my coat and leave a note, but no one is awake to care.

"i've gone to do some thinking...don't know when or if i'll be back."

*****

so it commences: yet another last-ditch attempt to clear my mind of emptiness. i've got no more energy left to expend on all these worthless sentiments and burnt out emotions. you took it all away from me, and so it fades to black. you took it all away from me...how could i ever get it back?

i look into and see right through those seemingly innocent eyes, but every time i look into the mirror all i see is you. it's kind of funny...it's the part of me that never lived that now has died. you took it all away from me, and so it fades to black. you took it all away from me...how will i ever get it back?

and as the sunrise reflects off all the windows of the houses in this sleeping town, i head toward a place i hesitate to call home. i can't believe i somehow missed the blinding truth i' now have found. you took it all away from me, but i won't let it fade to black. you took it all away from me, and i'll be damned if i won't get it back.

*****

he wakes up in the morning and takes a shower about an hour or so before he has to go to class. he's past her now, he screams to himself, as he brushes his teeth and drinks his coffee. and she wakes up expressly to say "have a nice day", and he goes out on his way, and she goes back to bed. she doesn't have a class until ten.

he walks down that lonely, yet all-too-familliar snow-covered path thinking about the math test he never ends up studying for all those nights before. and he knows somewhere deep down in his heart that there's got to be something more than yet another not-so-lonely night, when she comes to call at one a.m.

she tells us all that she just didn't want to walk home alone when we ask her where the hell she's been. he asked her not to breathe a word to us about what went on all those nights, but a couple weeks and a few drinks later...yeah, right.

and the snow continues to fall down through the strange and still post-winter air. i know how much you love the summer, but you want to know a secret, darling?

it can stay winter forever for all i care.

and i hope it does. oh, god, i hope it does stay winter forever.

*****

i know i said i wouldn't turn the heat on now that spring is here, but this cold snap caught me off guard. i would try to keep my door open to let heat in from the other room but it's so hard to join a party i'm never invited to, anyway.

so i'll just sit, here in my corner, looking like i'm ignoring everything. you look at me like i've been lost at sea, but in reality i've come back to shore to avoid your party. which i'm never invited to, anyway.

it seems you think i've changed for the worst, but i never had a place in your world. the person you got to know before was a person who never existed.

sorry to rain on your parade, but i've got to get going. i've got a list of unimportant and boring things to do, and besides, it was a party i was never invited to.

*****

brace yourself: it starts again when you walk through that door. another night of wasted time. another chance to be ignored. but it's come time you've run out of change to buy the lies you held so dear. you close your eyes, only to find that you've already dissapeared.

i'm sorry. i could have stopped it but i didn't. i just stepped back, detante. i'm sorry. forgive me.

the same old thing has a nice ring to it and so it goes: another set of regrets, the same old songs on the stereo. a welcome chance to drown your sorrows presents itself, you take it up. she makes her rounds, it's astounding to see how quickly she's given up.

i'm sorry. it never should have come to this. i wish i'd never brought you to this place. i'm sorry. forgive me.

the tension burns. she drives the knife in and turns. the ultimatum. drop everything and run as fast as you can, don't look back.

i'm sorry. you've done nothing to deserve this pain. it's not your fault. i'm sorry.

i'm sorry. you've done nothing to deserve this pain. it's not your fault. i hope you know i still love you.

and i'm so sorry.

*****

i don't know where to begin...we're being worn thin from wearing our souls pinned to our sleeves. i'm sick of living in this house of sin, you're finished: half diminished, and we don't know what to take or leave.

the lights are fading, stop the film! and let the scene be cut. grab your keys, and let's hit the i-90 pavement ruts. blinking yield lights at third street intersections: moving somewhere, aimless with direction.

we know where we're going...exactly how to get there, neither of is quite sure about. it's so hard not knowing, so i honestly don't know what i'd do without the midnight conversations. talk a couple hours about the truth that we still havent found. there's room for contemplation, so let's put on another record, end up on the other side of town.

it's hard to justify when everyone takes off their disguise to show who they really are, which is less than "true"...and you realize their actions were all based on lies and wonder why you let it go so far. i know, because i went there too.

and it's hard to believe that it's just beginning. wheels to concrete as the world keeps spinning. but...we've gained a stronger foothold; some form of faith, some form of control. and it seems we are finally winning.

as the streetlights reflect off grey sky, and the asphalt flies by like our lives: new revelations with each roadsign.

i can't always promise good weather, but i can sure as hell be there for you when life kicks you in the face. so, take my hand, and let's go! together, we'll rise above it all and blow this sorry place for midnight conversations. talk a couple hours about the truth that we still havent found. there's room for contemplation, so let's put on another record, end up on the other side of town.

*****

the silence says much more to me than the load of bullshit you were constantly imposing on everyone you'd see. i feel the temperature drop: every time you walk into a room the music stops, and storm clouds loom on the horizon.

you flip through a stack of photographs, cutting out and covering up all the people you no longer wish to see.

and sometimes i want to take away all the relics of the good times that we shared before this cold war came. but then i realize that the simple act of remembering will cause so much more pain than the loss ever will.

so arrange those lifeless photographs upon your tabletop, because the glue is so much stronger than the friendships ever were.

*****

so i sit here on these lonely concrete steps, watching the cars drive by. it's the first real summer afternoon i've seen in such a long time. and all the cars roll by piled high with the last nine months of our lives.

and i've tried to mop up the remains of dirty little secrets but i can't, they've soaked into the floorboards and the carpets. if these walls could speak, what do you think they'd say? i don't care, i don't want to know anyway...some things are better kept a secret. so i'll let it go, all of these things i was never meant to know.

i'll leave them here.

b a c k / f o r w a r d