(boomerangs)

XV.

         There are other nighttime bends; corners that I round and never keep, loose recollections of the places I've been and hardly been, even in my head where, more and more often, I don't choose to stay. Dirty alleys, pissing behind buildings; walking along an array of empty streets, some cracked and crumbling downtown, some sweating and slanting by the waterfront. Walking forever and ever—pulling myself hand-over-hand down a conversation that's like a rope made from bedsheets tied together, directing my feet. Tired, flat feet. Indifferent self-thoughts, looping; defensive and neutral, looping. Dancing with myself, rocking and twisting and writhing to a beat I never let in, or a beat that walks right past me, so that when I wake up in the morning with circles of grey makeup around my eyes and flecks of black paint on my nose and cheeks and temples, I remember absolutely nothing, save that I had fun. It's not even a deep and true knowing, either.

         Other nights I've walked beneath planes of leaves, whose silver-filmed bellysides flash like squirming silver-scaled fish, silverfish; let my skin crawl away in fear of spiders in the black-dark park; taken pictures with my eyeballs and left the poignant feeling behind with the drunk who pukes behind the building where I pissed. Or I've danced with long lost acquaintances, danced away down half lit streets, to a children's park or a crime scene, donning only a sandlot shirt, my lykafur coat, my running fishnets, held up with mismatching bandanas tied at uneven heights around my thighs. A butt that says PEACE, a sharp engagement ring made from a red plastic twisty-tie. The kind of ring that I lose before morning and don't miss, the kind of engagement that's as serious as skipping pantsless down a street to the dock and singing the manifestos of a pantsless Anybody, a sharpie-colored vandal. That's as serious as the barefoot vandal herself, thieving temporary parking signs, staked in the Earth, and enlightening her shine-eyed pupils on the sneaking oppression that steals blank slates and canvases and feeds minds with pig chow and the desire for more input.

         There are the silly jeans that ripped in the middle, of the ass; the lounge room ash trays into which I've projectile-purged two hours of my night; the excited shouting and inconsolable, angry yelling of young hearts in younger bodies, across ravine-cleft streets, and towels on the floor. Beer moshed down my shirt in a wayward pit of punks, water-flavored tongues that find their own way into my mouth and send me away from bittered arousal and running towards a list of embarrassing acts, laughing sadly with The Way Things Look.

         Tackling another teen, a favorite, a trickster, during a soccer skirmish after school. In a violet construct, on a lucky hill; jumping on his back in a violet fervor. A hundred and forty some pounds in the moment, he not, and not cool and not calm either. Drawing the heat to his cheeks, drawing the flint of confusion across a stone-cold barrier, sparking an awkward fire. Obliging him to carry me to the slowly rolling ball, losing momentum. Whispering in his ear, losing momentum. Obliging him to answer, drawing out his confirmation. Shutting my eyes, beating my head, losing again what I've already lost: the favor of my fervor.

         A missed kiss at a vending machine, a hug that let me go too fast, that pushed me away and pulled my tail between my legs.

         Some things are like boomerangs, for years and small lifetimes.

         "It's all gone in the blink of an eye. How fast life's gone by. How fast it will go by." These words came and went, as fast and as memorable as the pain in three whitish potholes on my wrist. Holding the butts there, to my arm; feeling the details without the agony, paying attention with an attention that school never earned.

         All of these are things I've lost, things I lose because they return to beat my head and pull my tail between my legs, and beat my heart, free the flow through my heart and distend, birth circulation for the realm I write.

         Do I lose them all in the end? Even this I can't ask. Even if there is an End.