Red Leaves

http://charlespoet.podomatic.com/entry/2015-09-10T13_15_22-07_00

“It’s time to go.”
Let’s not pretend we know any better.
Let’s not pretend.

We talked on the phone.
I went on and on about sacrifice.
Her breathing never fails to challenge and reawaken me.

The last time we met there was whiskey on your breath.
I know you were not an alcoholic and even if you were who gives a shit.
I remember every single one of our recording sessions. How you’d lumber around the room like a giant sequoia in need of sunlight and more time.

“It’s time to go.”
Or it’s time to stay.
It’s our choice and whatever we choose to do or not do won’t make any actual difference when the weights and measures finally erase us for good.

I want to spend an eternity with you in afterschool detention.
I want to hang out with Mr. Soble in some undisclosed location even though I know he was not as cool and in control as he may have once seemed to my teenage addled brain.
In fact I believe he was bordering on disintegrating at virtually any moment and that is why I paid attention in his class and allowed myself to be taught by someone who was clearly not the brightest bulb in the box.

When I call and you answer it’s like a conjugal visit stripped free and clear of sex, but chocked full of red glitter and clandestine absorption.
Neither one of us has a smartphone which I actually think makes us that much cooler in the drawn-out and rather clumsy order of things.
I was screaming like a baby bird in need of nourishment when you stuck your fingers down my throat and fed me whatever was within reach. A few rusty nails, a worm or two and your unremitting sickly sweet reassurances that neither one of us would die today even though we’d wish we had.

Charles Cicirella
9/10/15