I don't know why they don't make a point of giving us different room assignments -- they know we have... issues. He can't stand staying the night in the same room as me, and even if he did, we'd both just lie awake, trying not to concentrate on the sound of the others' breathing.

It's cold out here, and I know that I should go in soon, but I can't help looking over the edge -- can't help looking my own death in the eyes.

I die and no one knows me.
The distance that I've kept from everyone
has grown infinite now --
a more permanent barrier
between the living and the dead.
I am afraid of open doors
so I sit here in silence
and plant the seeds of anger
I can't explain the way I act --
a chair smashed in one moment of glorious
flying pieces of wood and plastic.
I hope he won't care
how I've slammed doors in his face
He's not here to watch
the explosives detonate
and watch me as I throw meaningless fits
hoping to break anything they hit.

If he didn't frustrate me so much, I think I could handle it. If he could just look me in the eye and tell me what is wrong, I think I could let him leave. I could let him go off and do whatever he has to do to get me out of his mind.

At least I still have my music -- and even that gives me grief. I mean, I love writing music -- it is my passion. It's what I get lost in when everything else has failed me. I can't rely on it to keep me sane forever, I'm just not that good enough. I write silly pop songs and mushy ballads -- nothing that's going to make the earth quake or make him rethink his love for me.

It doesn't help that I've known him for years. It made telling him that I loved him that much harder. He understood, though. He held my hand and told me he loved me too. If I only knew then that he didn't mean it.

He even slept with me. My fantasies of Chippendale Joey played out before me for too many starless nights. I still don't understand why he did it. The sex wasn't always great, so it wasn't just for the sex. I can't help think that he pitied me.

I want to remake this life I've made. Mold it into something happy, something bright -- one that could erase our past and return us to our upright positions.

I'm making myself dizzy, staring at the ground. There's grass below -- I don't think it'd kill me if I fell. If I close my eyes, I could imagine that I'm flying, leaving behind this room and it's emptiness.

I die and no one knows me
and life continues to happen
breathing, sleeping, moving, consuming.
I live with a daily hypocrisy --
finding fault with others
without acknowledging fault
in myself --
I want it to stop.
These things break me:
helplessness,
fear so hot it burns a trail
of migraines into my skull.
I want out of having to live in my mind --
the silence that allows me
to deteriorate
when I am alone at night.
Silence like the hard pit of a nectarine
that rises in my throat when I lie awake
after midnight
when he hasn't returned
and when I try to quiet the voices
they want to know the sound
of my bones cracking
my blood spilling
the sound of those who never knew me
gasping as I say I told you so
I can't ignore them
so I die --

It's been like this for months now. He goes off into the night and leaves me with what's left of my sanity, my only reason for holding on being able to see him in the morning light and finally be able to write the words, the music, that will make him say he loves me again.

I feel nauseous and I sit down on the wooden planks of the balcony. I'm feeling like a caffeine induced insomniac -- I feel the energy surging in my ears, the anticipation of dawn becoming too much to bear,

He's made me an incoherent sentence, he's taken apart all my stories, he's unwritten the words of my existence. what can I do
what can I do
what can I do
when he is not here to tell me that he loves me to tell me that he'll make it all better that the world doesn't not matter that my life is not coming to an end that he won't leave me alone in this hotel room that he'll come back he --
he'll come back

I die like metaphors without words --
a happy death,
an absent pain,
and dreams draining away like wasted time.
I'd rather die that I've one more night
of uncontrollable thoughts --
of misery that stains my sheets
and knocks the clock off the bedside table.
When the dawn breaks
I hope that this will be that day that I change,
the day that I stop hiding
but it won't happen
I must die to be reborn.
change is difficult
difficult to look into your own eyes
and watch the fragments of yourself
weld together inside your irises
then break again.
But what does it mean to die?
I've already worn myself away
and carelessness or bad health might take me.
Even though you've turned from me
would you pick up the pieces I've left
and hold what I didn't know I had?

I can feel the sun coming up -- the horizon is a shade of green I'd never though I'd see. It is approaching like I am, slow and detached, not acknowledging the earth, but merely shining upon it.

I don't know what's been keeping me away from the ledge all night, or on other nights keeps the gun from my mouth and knife from my wrist. I want to tell you though, that I'm sorry, Joey. I'm sorry for wanting this life we have to end. I'm sorry for being this way, I'm sorry that I can't write songs for you, I'm sorry that I make you wander off into the night, I'm sorry that your eyes are red and tired, I'm sorry.

I have dreams of you. Dreams where you love me. You love me. You hold me and I don't have to be afraid. You take me into yourself. Little pink bunnies hop around us and blue butterflies flitter around us. The keebler elf bakes us cookies shaped like hearts, because you LOVE me. Chris and Justin and Lance dance for us because they see how happy we are. It's my birthday and you make me blow out my candles and I wish for us to be together forever. The world spins in the opposite direction for us.

It's morning and I am dead. You've come back in and pierced my with your eyes, your tears killing me -- a poison dripping into my mouth. You carry me to the car and take me to the hospital. You never let go of my hand.

I am alive
I open my eyes as if I never had before and see
beautiful green, like spring blossoming trees.
I can smell the rain
as it hits the pavement --
warm and cool at the same time and gritty.
And I feel light drooling from the tops of buildings
and it flows into a pool of gold that illuminates the wall beside me.
I hear your voice,
the traffic,
like water rushing past my ears.
And I am not thinking about tomorrow I am not thinking about tomorrow
I am thinking about how forever is right now
and daylight refuses to leave
you refuse to leave
without marking the sky.

End.

Originally written as an *Mprov on 12/16/00, with the words keebler elf, Chippendale Joey, caffiene.