Boundless Eyes, Boundless Mind

Her life has never been as sharply defined as it is in these final seconds before it is about to end. A rush of stale air fills the underground cavity as the low guttural roar of the approaching subway train reaches a crescendo in her ears, punctuated steadily by her pounding heart. She hears it as a torturous musical composition which she finally understands as the blood rushes to her head and she sways forward over the live track. A crackle of static expectation runs along the lines, along which commuters have placed themselves like counters on a roulette wheel as they play the game for all-or-nothing, expectation and dawning horror as they watch her floating forwards. And then the train screams into the station, and she is lost underneath it, and the train pulls to a halt.

Somewhere on the platform, a woman screams.

***

It always felt like you were there, even when you weren’t. You shadowed me down concrete alleys swept with fire-red leaves, and sat beside me on park benches watching old men tinkering with miniature boats on the pond.

An illusion, of course: I was just as alone then as I am now, but somehow there was a warmth about my life which came of knowing that somebody held me in their heart.

Perhaps there is a power which comes of learning to live out here in the cold; of giving up the search for streams of warmer water to coast these brief dashes of lust and excitement

But it’s just so cold, you see, dear, walking down these alleys and hearing only the echoes of my own footsteps; shivering alone on these park benches floating memories of you on the boating lake which is closed for the winter,

And I find myself wishing for your superficial warmth again.

I taste red wine on your lips, red wine and disappointment

You run your hands down over my hips and pull me closer to you

A hunger for something to make this moment less vacuous,

As though by fucking me, you are fucking life

Pounding over and over again into a hot, experiential cunt.

I’ve recently learned that when people want to walk out of your life, the best thing to do is simply hold the door open for them on their way out.

Unfortunately this new-found policy has caused a number of old acquaintances to start dropping like flies. I’ve got a casualty list which is reminiscent of the ‘Somme. I’m beginning to feel like a door-man.

Still, I suppose that’s a step up from ‘door-mat’. ;)