Tuesday, May 25, 2010

December in Charlotte (December 2006)

It usually rains

I’d never seen it snow

In Charlotte

In December

-

Before Mr. Cobain

Decided to go away

I spent Christmas day

In Charlotte

-

I had ridden up with Tom Tretheway who continued on.

I was seeing a girl from Metairie but thought I was in love with a girl from Baton Rouge.

I stayed up all night trying to write a song in minor c.

It snowed that year.

We ate gumbo out of the same bowls we ate from when we were in grade school.

-

December

In charlotte

With the snow on the ground

Not covering up too much

The way I felt

Was not distracted

By the snow on the ground

-

My sister and I got high

On the back porch after lunch

Then walked in from the back

Of the strip mall cinema

To see a movie

About Geronimo

-

Geronimo was an honest man

He believed that other people were honest too

Miles just kept throwing new people for him to trust

But it killed him and a bunch of his family too

And they lost all their land

-

Why did I leave?

Why did I want to leave?

-

A mother I loved had a tendency to smother you with her own shit.

She didn’t have an outlet

Her creativity was crafts and kind of pre-made parts stuff

She glued impressionist prints to matt board and covered every wall

Late one night I dusted and straightened the miniature prints in cheap frames in the bathroom.

I hope she noticed.

I drank all of her crown royal each visit, I don’t really like crown royal.

-

She did not know how to be sad and be OK with it.

-

Sometimes sad can produce something beautiful

Sometimes sad can give you something in common

Sometimes sad is just melancholy unnoticed for a little too long

Sometimes sad isn’t the worst thing to be

Sometimes sad needs to run along till its tired

-

She thought sad was weakness

She thought weakness made you lonely

She’d rather distract herself and pretend

She never used her imagination

-

She thought you should never be alone

She was afraid to be alone

Sad and alone is weak

She would rather not be alone any matter who she had to be with

She had space to fill, she filled it up

She wanted to fill it up, she filled it up

Us kids only filled up so much, no security

Besides we had our own lives to lead and it left a gap

No security in her terms

The gap to be filled up in any way

-

The best Decembers for me was when she was alone

She had to use us to get filled up

We would have come to see her anyway

But we got more because of the loneliness, we were lonely too

I think we all did great at being alone together

Drinking, being alone, getting a little more alone on my own after bedtime

-

I left to follow my own solution to loneliness

I left because I wanted to want the impossible

It was impossible to want who I wanted, desire beyond my capacity

Desire beyond thinking it through, desire for one

Wanting love without knowing how to love

Wanting a love that decimates loneliness

A love that cuts it down

A love that somehow changes you

Changes your desire to be lonely, alters your being

Makes you not value being alone anymore

Makes you give up your self

Impossible

I wanted to be alone with that desire

To make the desire more felt by not pursuing it

Now isn’t that alone?

-

My sister told mom about her run in with the law

A bong in the back seat of her Honda in a state park

It’s not such a big deal in Louisiana, but it will get you

Then she asked me about it

I said I had never gotten caught

She just asked how much it cost

I said I got it from friends, so not a lot

She asked about the smell, can’t everybody tell?

I stood outside the screen door and told her about how it felt

-

I took the train back

On New Year’s Eve

Mom and I drove around town

To try to buy a fifth of whiskey for the ride home

-

December in charlotte

With snow on the ground

Not really covering much of anything

All the stuff in my head still there

I’m just left with my breath in the air

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