Bleed Me the Death River

Moaning in the bullet-riddled square; clenching a handkerchef in my jaws. The square fades in and then back out as if blindness eclipse my eyes but it isn't that either. The red pool is still too vivid. Red, red, red like flags waving in the Revolution.

I see shoes scattered throughout the street and their owners have no time left to care. Too many fairy tale characters strewn about - one shoe on and one shoe off. Eyes open; playing dead, secretly stashing their souls away behind their eyelids for protection from mites. Irenic.

The temerity of those bullets striking meat! The thump-thump sound! The gasp! The fall! The dark red crude. The taste of cherries in your mouth. The flies congregating near entry wounds. I am dying at last but not until I've finished bleeding. Not until the light in my eyes become dull. Not until the tears on my cheeks dry. I will take my time.

I hear moaning in Tiananmen Square. Moaning in Baghdad. Moaning in Boston. Moaning in New Delhi. Moaning, longing, seething, dying, crying, fucking in the world's affairs. The Atlantic Ocean is pistol blood red. The sunset is Christ blood red. We paint the skies and waters with our struggles. We paint with our essence as cavemen painted cave ceilings with spit and coal. We paint the eyes of albinos. The leaves of lettuce. The backs of fish. The hide of deer. We paint the world with suffering. We paint everything with the blood of our children. We are Mars's fury.

We are the red disciples who come two and two into Noah's boat. The Noah - he the Charon of the living world crossing over the patrimonial bloody river. The boundless terrirtory of red waters boiling at the Earth's crust. No one to claim the wealth of white essence. No wine to supplement the suffering. Disease infests the manifest.

My blood is no longer mine. It belongs to the sewer and the mud. I clear out. The scene is severed and my transition...

complete

Six Years and We’re Still Falling

You fall out of the sky with nothing to cover the drag like a parachute or an umbrella. You have 10 seconds of freefall. The gasp of the wind whistles in your ears. Not even gravity can believe you jumped from the 106th floor. Not even steel and concrete can believe that it was penetrated by an invasive airplane. Not even an elevator shaft could believe that it could drink liquid fire and breathe out smoke. Not even the clear sky could believe that it could give birth to 200 bodies. Not even the ground could believe that it could swallow them all.

It almost felt like flying. Your clothes were gliders. Your heart the engine but your arms –they're still arms. They can't flap so they grab at clouds thousands of feet above you. The ledges of the building are relatively close but you couldn't grab onto them even if you had been closer. Like baby birds falling out of the nest the mother bird can't even save and just like them you hoped for a miracle but the only one that came was the end of your life; the cessation of body and spirit from this suicidal world.

Ten seconds of falling doesn't change who you are. What you smell like. It doesn't change your dirty shirt or clean underwear. You still have a sore toe and the pain hasn't gone away. It's just less important. You were still human when you kissed the sidewalk. You were still like me. While you were falling, I was at home blinking my eyes open for the first time as a hardened man who grew from the boy that came to New York with the intention of seeing what more life could give.

I sunk deep into the middle of disbelief
The panic sunset;
My calloused memory;
Too dense to be surprised.
The good morning sadness
The last breath of a falling star
The turmoil of millions since

It's been six years and we're all still falling.