мой дух причинять боль я любовь ты

"We forget that we are all1

dead men conversing with dead men."2

~Jorge Luis Borge3

I met a man on the street once, and I could have sworn I knew him before. He had a cardboard sign with permanent marker letters, faded and bleeding through the brown board. When he smiled, his whole face crinkled up, ear to ear, until his eyes almost disappeared, and then his eyes waltzed with mine, even though I didn't know how to dance. His chocolate-brown hands were soft, and worn around the edges, covered in callouses from the life he lead thus far. He wore a warm gray wool cap, with the initials L.Z., and he looked like he'd gone through the wash too many times, like the rainbow had never reached him. I walked by, and stared, and as I did time froze. I looked at him, mesmerized. His eyes locked with mine and out of the corner of his left eye, a single tear hung, lifeless and limp. And suddenly time sped up too quickly, rushing back with a vengeance, leaving me in my apartment. And he crowded my every thought. And that tear...why did he cry for me? Even I wouldn't cry for me.4

I decided to go to the oracle, the one that's been with me for a while, but not enough to know me...the real me. The sign on the door said T.M., P.I. and I knocked. T.M. opened the door and asked me to sit down, so I did. My legs crossed by themselves, reminding me of third grade, and the carpet was purple and plushy. I wondered how I was to explain something that wasn't really there. T.M. sat in her computer chair, typing like a maniac on her computer. It was an old one, from the early nineties, and I wondered how she ever got work done fast enough. I sighed, and said, "Do you ever wonder if this is real? If any of this is real? If you're real?" She looked up from her typing, and stared at me. She shook her head. "Doubts only lead to more chaos, Elena. There's no time for doubts. No time for feeling, no time for emotion. Nothing is certain. Nothing is eternal. Nothing is life-like. I can't be there for you...5

I'll never be there for you."6

And as the tears welled up in my eyes, I stared into T.M.'s face. 7

"That's not what I needed to hear."8

And I closed the door, trying to control the tears that so eloquently tried to overflow me...and overthrow me.9

And so I left.10

I decided to go to the doubter, the one that always listens. The door read E.T., P.I. and I went in, because no one knocks...no one ever has. E.T. sat alone in a chalk-white room with a white coat on, staring at a blank poster. I stood, staring at her staring at the poster. I looked at what she so intensely concentrated on, and I could almost see something. Colorful lights, red roses, kisses between lovers. I turned away, and looked back again, but just like I suspected there was nothing there. The tears then came freely, etching their ruts down the side of my face. I cried out for her, for anybody, for everybody. My voice gave out, and I tried like a stubborn child to continue scream, and she didn't stir. She didn't even blink. She just continued to stare at the blank poster, as it slowly digested her...everything. I stood there, for what seemed like hours, mourning. Then I headed towards the door. I whispered,11

"That's not what I needed to hear.",12

and shut the door quietly, placing a "Do not disturb" sign on the doorknob.13

And so I left.14

I decided to go to the wisdomic sane ones. The door read M. & E., P.I. and I waited. I needed to be called into their presence. They were my gods among mortal men, and they knew me so well. After a short while, the door opened of it's own accord, and I walked in. I bowed my head low in reverence and a sign of humbleness. I felt their eyes separating my soul, turning it over and over and over, until I didn't know what was left and what was x + the square root of 9. I wanted to end it all. Their eyes were so damn honest, so damn perfect, so damn real. Suddenly, the price was too high, and I tore out of their clouded room, finding it hard to breathe. The tears fought themselves back into my eyes, and I released my shaky, crestfallen breath. My core had been shaken. I said silently,15

"That's not what I needed to hear."16

And then I ran from there, because they knew me too well.17

I decided I needed to go to the мертвая голова, the one I knew all too well. The door read R.I.P., P.I. and I looked in the window, too scared to venture in. The grave soil was turned over, and the graves ransacked. R.I.P.'s fleshy hand stuck out of the soil like a daisy, holding a small, bloody, unborn child that still writhed in it's half-death. The sight made the bile rise in my mouth and I retched, spilling it over the floor like multi-colored intestines. R.I.P. looked at me, and then to the spill with intense fascination. He went to the window to arrange it in a pretty pattern. He stared into my eyes, and liking what he found there, he made the window black. I screamed,18

"THAT'S NOT...what I needed to hear!!"19

I pounded the glass that wouldn't shatter, just as I was here, unshatterable. And I sunk to the ground, almost threatening to retch again at the sight of what R.I.P. had done. He made the bloody baby the center of my waste on the floor. The baby opened its violet eyes, coughing up mucus and bile and a black substance. I ran...ran so fast the scenery couldn't keep up with me. And when I was gone...I was too scared to cry.  20

I decided to go to the nothingness, to stop feeling if only for but a minute. The sign on the door read L.Z., P.I. and I was afraid to go in, afraid of my expectations. I turned the doorknob...and stared into the eyes of the man I had been searching for. I ran into his arms, and he held me tightly, assuring me he'd never let go. The tears now, without anything or anybody, streamed down the left side of my face. He wiped away the tears in my eyes with his brown thumb, which made me sob even more, the tears melting the left side of my face. I didn't know how long me sat there, him holding me. When I finally breathed again, he tilted my chin towards him, his eyes meshing with mine. He smelled like trees and new kisses, of life force and lilac, of magic and something...untraceable. He took off his gray cap, and his white hair cascaded down, framing his face. I then suddenly knew who he was, and where he was from. He looked at my knowing eyes, and tears welled up in his left eye. I never left his eyes as I walk towards the door. This time words just weren't enough...just weren't enough.21

And so I left.22

I decided I needed to go home, finally. To rest after everything I'd seen. The sign on the door read M.E., P.I. and suddenly there was no door. There was just a mirror, with someone staring back that I didn't know. An empty face...a void where something should have been, a chasm sucking everything into it. I turned to run, but the face/noface laughed...a horrible sound, like nails pounding into a cross, like blood in the lake, like brother staring at brother and shooting, the blood spurting out like a fountain of youth, like a man with a gun and four dead children already and his young son only two staring into his daddy's eyes not knowing what is to happen grabbing for his daddy he stumbled and his eyes well up ready to cry out the tears coming quickly now and his daddy -- his daddy...23

BAM!!24

And suddenly it all goes away.25

And I'm blind, I can't see. But I smile at the girl fumbling with life and her latte, the one that speaks in riddles and metaphors, who tries to believe in the metaphors she speaks, the one that realizes she doesn't know everything, the one that can't forget, the one that can't fade away, the one that26

can't        let           go.27

And I take off my gray wool cap, and smile and waltz with her eyes, because she's in a corner she can't get out of. And a tear starts forming in my left eye because she'll never know how beautiful she is until she leaves this all behind...and I'll miss her when she's gone.28

And I worry she'll never get out.29

And so, maybe in the end, she'll realize it's all over...she just has to leave. 30

But along the way, maybe she'll forget the way and be trapped...forever.31

She'll forget who I am, all over again.32

And she already has...33

she already has.34

And I say to you, you who knew all along, you who observed everything, opened every door and read on and on and on,35

"It is you who I needed to hear."36

"We forget that we are all37

dead men conversing with dead men."38

~Jorge Luis Borge39