The Short Life, or J. C. H.

I JUST wrote this, haven't looked it over, nothing. It's very long and even more personal. I'm posting because I've known that it needed to be written for over a year, but just now forced myself to do so, and even though I haven't read over it yet, I really think I have something here.

The Short Life, or J. C. H.

You were in love with me, when I was only a girl
Not yet even a shadow of a woman,
but already an open wound.

You'd pull my hair, trip my heels,
steal my purse and I cursed you in the schoolyard,
poured ice and syrup water over your head, the dye ran down
your blonde hair, your pale head.

But in the cafeteria line, one day
I burned my finger and stuck its red tip in my mouth
“Don't do that,” you said, moving my hand, protecting my body for it's own harm
“The inside of your mouth is over 98 degrees,
the air around us, the surface of this stainless steel, are much cooler, better for you body,”
and my arm hung down, stinging slightly less.

I never saw it, never saw the light in you eyes when I entered the room
chalked you up a schoolyard distraction,
found your words and tug crass, not searching or longing
for their lost meaning.

But some we'd talk and you'd seem bright, just a child a bit lost
I didn't know your family troubles, your too open wounds,
and I sang to myself that old radio tune,
“I wonder what it is I see in you, I wonder if I'll always be with you...”
but replaced the ambiguous nouns with your name.

At my twelfth and your thirteenth year we lost
you closest playground companion, a boy in love with my best friend
a boy she too rejected, swatted away like cooties or misquotes, moths drawn to our flames
but we'd always turn out the light.

His body sat in a casket that was kept closed, our parents fearful
that our young hearts would break even more, be made even more scarred
if we could see the accidental bullet hole in young, fleshy neck
in my head, I thanked and cursed them both for this.

We sat on lime green astroturf, the town was poured in our high school gym
That Halloween day, death and dark had suddenly become real
and we saw what swift and stern repercussions
the simplest, easiest sort of mistake could make.

You and I, and she, we broke into more pieces than the bones in his former face,
we shattered like porcelain hurled from a city window
the last strings of youthful ignorance and ambivalence,
forever freed from us.

Every night, the three of us salt-rained into sheets and pillows,
bath tubs and bathroom floors,
but she had my hand, I had hers
no one had yours.

The summer came and our wounds tried to dry
but we still wept in silent dark, in closed door rooms where we could only see each other
but not you, we could not and did not see you,
you stayed within the county line but changed school mascots.

I saw you time to time, basketball games and trivia tournaments,
your smile seemed real again and your hair was short, staunch,
I thought you lucky, to finally be so happy
I couldn't have thought of a better way for you.

The years went by with the weather and I found myself unable to stand still any longer
the summers grew shallower and the schoolyard games of teasing turned into every day rituals of hurt
the boys and girls in our hometown feared me,
I have always been more than a little strange.

So without realizing, I took a similar path as you,
stayed fat away but kept close, looked for better learning or at least gentler children,
gentler something, a mostly-escape from still tear-eyed memories
and that grey yet decorated headstone.

The days kept moving faster, like an over-wound watch on our wrists
and summers past without me finding a trace of your face
I ran farther off, to college
and in my second summer home, gained some knew knowledge of you.

Your ex-stepmother saw me, on my way out of town one weekend,
laughed loud when she heard my name,
“Oh, you, you're Sarah,” she said, slow and loud and sweet,
“Cody, he was always in love with you.”

These words struck me odd, but it all sort-of made sense,
I became angry with myself, knowing I'd been such a bitch at such a young age,
But I consoled myself, we were only children, after all
and besides, every day, more and more I would change.

The next summer, I saw your face from behind computer glass
You were a man now, camo-clad and serious,
with a red-haired barely-woman in a white wedding dress,
I was proud of you again, happy you'd found what so many spend so much
looking for.

I tried to talk to you that summer, occasionally we'd run into each other
at the truck stop by my house
but we were grown now, we were no one like we'd been before
and the red curls of the girl in the truck made looking into your eyes
uncomfortable.
So I went back, back to that cold place, my dorm room, my offices
but was almost pushed out, consequences of minor mistakes
and grew lonely, impatient, unbearable,
wanted it all over.

But the light showed itself to me again, as it always has
when the world deals you much trouble, you learn to find ways
to dig yourself out,
if only slightly.

But again came another black-cloud day, another waning moon sky
you had whiskey on your breath and a crack in your heart,
your love had left you, is what they say
my father saw you that night, said you looked liquid.

But you can't trust me, I'm a faulty narrator,
this, and many parts of the story, are only what
I have been told, I wasn't close enough
to know the truth.

The real truth of the matter is, though
that you are dead now, bullet wounded
a shaky shot to your head and the cycle,
it begins again.

Now I loved many men, most of them loose cannons
and known a few more, blisters in the sun
and with great ache, I admit many of them have turned
to a circled length of rope or the barrel of a gun.

Every day I must live with myself, hollowly promise that there was
probably
nothing I could do.

But I still think of you at night
and wonder if the world we be different
had I loved you.

roughest of drafts

Removed because the formatting was all fucked up and it was making me angry.

Fall Plans

Just to let anyone that cares know, I got into Emerson College 's (in Boston) Creative Writing - Poetry MFA program. They have offered me a $30,000 fellowship.