Note: remember that time for me does not exist in my domain.
We started by the door and ended up by the window. Drunken and unsure, we clawed madly at each other; the flesh bruised and red from rough fingers. The force of passion propelled us, that even the bed was shaken by the staggering aggression it held. All pent up and with no place to go. Lust, anger, hate and all the nasty little annoyances colliding.
I kicked out the blank body out before the hour was over. I
chased the stranger from the bed, into the living room and out into the cold.
It was raining hard outside but I was tired and angry. I didn’t want a reminder
of the scornful lust that ate me away.
Lately, I would come and be filled with immense disgust with the person next to me. The afterglow never lasted long. Sweat began to seem so vulgar. Sex became vulgar too. It was all so empty.
I don’t know why I did any of the things I did. I was
lonely, I think. But even all of these things were starting to get old. I
started to hate it. I’m a restless individual, and finicky in my leisure
activities.
The cicadas’ prayers are no longer heard, and I missed them.
On the last night of summer, I stood on the balcony admiring
the night sky. I was cold everywhere but between my legs. It was in that moment
that I loathed sex. Piano wires of hot burning desire. They cut into my arms,
my legs, my throat and my hands.
+
It was 8:39 AM, and I was careening down the street. Feet
slaps on the cemented ground, dodging prams and walkers. The cold sharp
punctures up my leg as my legs move so quickly that I cannot even catch their
shape anymore. All I could think was; I’m going to be lectured, I’m going to be
lectured, fuck hell, I’m gonna be SLAUGHTERED.
‘You could at least try to be here on time! You and Kyo! Him
sleeping and you! What do you do?’
‘Let’s see, I have a very long and vigorous shower, I eat my
breakfast, I brush my hair, I make myself presentable, I pick out my clothes, I
get in the car, or bus, or train or whatever and haul butt here?’
He wasn’t happy with my little quirk responses. It usually
involved various grimaces and staring downwards as he glared and preached to me
on the virtues of the ordinary; if he wasn’t as contemporary and open as he is,
my lack of punctuality would be seen as the worst sort of character fault.
So here I was, muffin in mouth; cell in hand; kissing salt,
steam and cold; licking at flame-licked leaves. Run, my mind told me, run as fast
as you can; ask questions and think later when you get there. And I ran that
morning, bothered and sweaty.
The chilly air curled its feathery fingers on me. I crashed
into the side of some moving vehicle and collapsed on the ground. I was half
dead from dreaming at night for sleep to come. I was smiling anyway. The autumn
leaves are so beautiful as they fall to earth. I closed my eyes.
Someone asked me was I okay. I nodded and tried to smile
through my glassy lips; I couldn’t speak anymore, my two pink fleshy bits stuck
together by some demented law of physics. Screw Kaoru. Camouflaged by leaves, I
rolled over and had a nap.
+
Staring at something that is nothing that is something that
can’t be named other than nothing. It is cold that fills in the gaps left after
summer rays have cast away the icicles of winter. Phantom winter. Heart of ice
cream – sweet and frozen.
To speak in the warm tongue, to use lips and mouth of water
and steam to tell a love of the raging virus in my blood stream; she didn’t
understand me to begin with. The cell left in the subway, and the crestfallen
walked home in blue rain.
At breakfast for the last time, she grabbed the funny butter
knife from the tray and stabbed me in the shoulder. She stabbed my hand to see
how I would cry. She said I was butter in her gaze, an ingredient for her
pleasure. She kissed my bleached white skin ever so tenderly. She pried off the
skin on my back to gorge herself on my marrow.
The shop keeper cleaned breakfast away.
The service was at 4 pm that afternoon. I didn’t attend. It
wasn’t an open-casket event; I was deformed as I lied in the satin-lined
coffin, my head towards the north. It was okay, because I don’t think I ever
truly loved her as much as I have loved another.
Next morning, I opened the window and down the bamboo. I ran
to the lonely grave in the savannah of glass yellowing, never green. My warm
lips and warm tongue said to my dead body; live; my spineless and bloodless
body turned and giggled.
I smudged ice on my lips, tongue and used my mouth to lick
at the casket I lied in, praying and begging for my soul to come and play with
me in my frozen playground. I got mail that afternoon; the world isn’t like
that, from your beloved body. I asked the ear connected to the mind just what
was it like. My mouth smiled with white lips of glazed sugar and said that it
was the greatest illusion. I turned away.
Don’t tell me about the world. Leave me alone. I want
loneliness. I want ennui. I want the nothingness that is the something that
can’t be named any other than nothing. Are you all that there is right there?
That empty gravestone with no body under it? Is that you?
I signed and slid my finger down the glass window; I wanted
to say something to someone so desperately, but who? I lied all along. I don’t
want loneliness, not really, but it’s safe. I want change; I want something
that is not called nothing.
Dust smells so familiar.
Another day. I woke up and got up from bed. I dressed and
brushed my teeth. I smiled at the other person in the bathroom and went to eat
a simple breakfast. The potted poppies giggled like school girls in the sun. I
pressed my dry palms to the closed glass window; the other side.
Enclosed and safe.
“Are you really happy?” Ame spoke to the open face of a
flower.
“What are you trying to say?”
“Don’t you miss me?” Clear, intense eyes.
“I miss you so much. Why did you leave so suddenly?”
Ame was crying, “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.” They
stopped, “Perhaps you should get going. You’re going to be late and you haven’t
put on your shoes yet.”
I closed the door and went out. I laughed and I felt happy.
I was happy, caught up in the nonsense that accompanied life and the motions of
living. I came home; happiness melted, more fragile than ice. The gaps left
after summer has slain winter are not filled with heat.
“Welcome home.” Ame looked up from their little book of
poetry, “How was your day?”
“You’re not real. Don’t torture me more than you have to.”
Ame frowned, “Why would I? Of course I’m real. I’m right
there, between your eyes.”
“That’s the bloody problem!” I snatched away the book and
threw it against the window.
When I looked up, there was no one there.
A childishly accusing voice, “Be that way!”
When I met you, you were hardly more than a child. Would you
still wrap yourself up and protect your identity as you did? Would you still speak
strangely in a secret language so pure to my ears that my mind becomes
frenzied? Would you steal pocket watches?
“Wait. What’s your name? Who are you?”
“The pocket watch . . . the pocket watch; ruler of time and
space. Like memories . . . recognition . . .”
+
I stuffed a piece of muffin in my mouth. I didn’t notice it
was blueberry till he stared it funny. He made an offhand comment about colour
coordination. I just eat; food is food.
“I told you to come in earlier.”
“I made it sort of, didn’t I?”
I finished my muffin and lit a cigarette. He was a bit
irritated, but I didn’t care anymore.
“Just 7 minutes late but it’s the principle of it.”
I shrugged, “Would it make a difference?”
He checked his watch, violet hair shifting with the tendrils
of wayward breeze that attached themselves. I noticed the soft light shinning
through the colour of his hair, a pink halo surrounding his head. He was so
serious, except pink and violet didn’t seem serious.
“The answer is obvious but I won’t say it. And have you seen
Kyo?”
“No. He’s probably asleep .”
He laughed at that, “Yes . . . probably just sat down
somewhere and nodded off.”
A little glance passed between us and we cackled. I had various
little scenarios running through my head; Kyo asleep on the park bench; Kyo
asleep in a tree; Kyo asleep standing up; Kyo asleep in a swimming pool; Kyo
bowled over dead on a train. That was an exaggeration but it was funny.
I started coughing a little, wheezing ; I was out from
breath from my little run. He slapped me on my back and I glared at him; he
made me drop my cigarette. I imagined a bruise the size of his palm printed on
my back.
“Does it look like I have a sign on my back saying ‘hurt me,
Kaoru’?”
He shrugged and grinned. He was so amused. I sneered; I
wanted to slap that grin off his face. I stopped; he looked much better smiling
and enjoying himself; he was the God of Death.
“Yes, you’re a sucker for pain, I mean, how else could you
have put up with Kyo living with you? Besides, you were coughing and you’re our
bassist, so I can’t let you choke to death even if I wanted to.” He patted my
head patronizingly. “You’re under contract, my dear.”
I punched him back on the shoulder.
“That was a punch, not a bloody slap! What kind of a
retaliation is that?”
I blinked a few times, my voice descending into a lisp. “I’m
sorry, I don’t know the difference.”
He glared at me and I did a little victory dance. It
consisted of jumping up and down while thrashing my arms. He laughed at that.
“It had the same force, and if you retaliate, I’m
challenging you to a match.” I held up my hands, “Wanna try me? I played
baseball.”
He held his hands up in defeat, “I concede. Yes, I know you
played baseball; I remember you were the pitcher so I don’t think I want to try
your arm strength.”
I smirked, wiggling my eyebrows and lit another cigarette.
He listened to my answer in a stupid interview; how amazing, but this was
Kaoru, who probably has a scrapbook containing every single copy of our
interviews, and profiles on each member filled out from them. I shuddered; anal
retentive till it hurts.
He asked for a light. Two tobacco freaks standing at the
door, puff , cough, puff, cough and they both fall down. I could never
understand the sinister attraction of tobacco; it’s all in the pose; it was
considered cool when I was in sixth grade and it still is; except it’s all
fake.
He looked at me, eyes narrowed. “ Just what kept you really?
You were walking a bit slow. And just why are there twigs in your hair?”
“Oh, I had a collision with a car.”
He was shrieking. I stopped listening and just watched. It
was like a movie. The pink fleshy pads of his lips were moving as he said something.
Lips fascinated me. So cruel and so kind. They were sensual, twisted and
hinting of other things. Lips of shifting lines to form the expressions he had.
‘I’m sorry, but I think you should leave.’
‘No! I won’t just leave like this!’
I opened the door, ‘Then I will.’
‘I can’t stop you, can I?’
‘Goodbye.’
Last sweet words. Words that foretold the end. I slammed the
door close and walked on to the rest of my life. When I turned around, the door
wasn’t even there anymore.
“EXCUSE ME, are you even listening to what I’m saying?”
He shook me a bit. I don’t have a great attention span. He
made me dropped my cigarette and I glared. He was saying something, using lips
and tongue to form the syllables. The lines of his face told me a story; here
standing before you is a man who believes you to be out of your mind.
I offered him a red leaf from my hair.
“It’s a perk.” I said. “It’s nothing.”
I ignored him; he wanted me to stop and explain. I flew up
the stairs, trembling; the trees denuded themselves around me. He belonged
among the leaves with his violent hair. The dew glazed my cheeks a delicate
pink. I don’t trust myself in this weather.
I took the subway home that evening. I went up and down the
escalators for an hour.
+
“Come back here!” He chased Toshiya around the room in circles.
Toshiya laughed and danced away, poking out one pink tongue that said ‘you can’t catch me’. Kyo yawned on the couch and watched Kaoru chasing Toshiya, trying to hit the bassist with him own bass. Maybe Kaoru didn’t get enough caffeine, he thought groggily. Shinya sat cross legged on the floor tapping away at the coffee table with his sticks. Someone was gonna be pissed when they saw the marks, he thought.
He blinked. Funny, when did the game turn with Toshiya chasing Kaoru? He watched through half-lidded eyes as Toshiya chased Kaoru with a baseball bat, swinging it wildly. He listened to their shouting. So Toshiya was going to kill Kaoru and Kaoru was going to punish Toshiya. Die was tuning and providing a running side commentary to Shinya. He snorted and rolled over on the couch; typical break time behaviour.
+
Let me penetrate you.
The body is full of secrets. Like a maze, inscribed on your
flesh. I found myself fallen prey to your labyrinth of shameful desire. And
down I went, finding myself lost in a dark corridor. I touched and I licked at the
walls, sugary walls to be wore away. I rubbed my body against the surface of
the wall that seeped into my flesh to embrace me.
I found solace in the landscape of the body. The curves of
the body where I slept. The grooves and bumps that offered comfort. I traced
the lines. I tried my hardest, using the sharp tip of my nails. The code
written was too hard but I tried anyway; the beautiful and complex calligraphy
that adorned and adored the flesh.
Eat me.
Grind my bones and puree my flesh and save my blood in a
wine bottle.
Suck me dry . . .
Kiss me, I begged, kiss me again, harder and with more
feeling. I got my kisses. On the slight curve of my stomach, the inside of my
wrists, line of my neck, the inside of my thighs, the arch of my feet, the knuckles
of my fingers and the grooves of my ribs. A nip there, a scratch here; painful
pleasure. Slap me, but softly; pain is but another sensation.
Night time; the early morning hours when no one is around.
Sounds are muffled by a web of silence. Shock waves through the body; tremors
across flesh. I was pleading for kisses, to embrace flesh and warm blood. The
violent motion that makes you scream, unable to decide between the razor sharp
pain that slashes at your fingers tips, and the drugged pleasure that numbed
your legs.
I woke with blood running down my legs, and a girl asking if
I was okay. I stared; it stained my fingers crimson. What a beautiful colour,
red. Has anyone told you that blood smells like fish? But fish smells of the
sea, the sand, and the metals. My metallic blood smelt of the sea. It disturbed
me; so putrescent.
The crisscrossing lacerations of vermilion . . .
She touched my cheek, ‘It’s okay. I bled lots too.’
Blood was so red, and the sea was so blue.
The blood had long congealed into a painful layer of copper
red. I pealed if off myself, this evidence of physical action. The smell of
blood followed me. I needed a shower. The girl used her gentle hands to dress
me. She didn’t mind the blood; she was strong. We ran so guiltily from the
scene. We took a taxi and I paid for her fare home.
‘See you later.’ She said, thinking I would be back.
‘Goodbye.’ I said, and watched the car pull away.
Arna.