pulse - a. difranco

this song was the first to play on our flight home. ironic...


you crawled into my bed that night
like some sort of giant insect
and i found myself spellbound
at the sight of you,
beautiful and grotesque and all the rest of that bug stuff
bluffing your way into my mouth
behind my teeth, reaching for my scars-
that night we got kicked out of two bars
and laughed our way home

that night you leaned over
and threw up into your hair
and i held you there, thinking-
i would offer you my.....pulse
if i thought it would be useful
i would give you my breath,
except,
the problem with death
is that we have some hundred years
and then they can build buildings on our only bones
100 years, and then your grave is not your own
and we lie in out beds, and our graves
unable to save ourselves
from the quaint tragedies we invent- and undo,
from the stupid circumstances we slalom through

and i realized that night that the hall light,
which seemed so bright when you turned it on,
is nothing-
compared to the dawn
which is nothing-
compared to the light
which seeps from you while you're sleeping,
cocooned in my room-
beautiful and grotesque,
resting

that night we got kicked out of two bars
and laughed our way home

i thought-
i would offer you my pulse,
i would give you my breath
i would offer you my pulse,
i would give you my breath

flashbacks

i thought that those ten steps would lead to the beginning of my coping. a long journey through coping with the loss of a best friend. my soul friend. the person with whom i am destined to have in my life.

flashbacks

we walk down the street. him just off the sidewalk in the road...me on the sidewalk. he begins talking to me in spanish. i remind him that i cannot speak spanish. he doesn't care and insists that i listen. focus. focus on the words and possible cognates. he speaks too fast. i hear the reving of an engine. turn. look. a cab. i tell him "no. no. no. no. no." in a spanish accent. i turn. i think the cab is going to move into the other lane and pass on by. my eyes follow along the cab's path. he enters my sight. "NOOO" the cab hits him from behind.

silence.

stunned.

"its hulon!" i see corinne running back with a horrified look on her face. i react....running to his side. i knell down beside him and begin talking to him. "he's breathing." i tell him to come back to me. that he has to stay with me. i talk him through his breaths. i tell him i love him.

he opens his eyes. sirens fill the air.

chaos.

the chaos ends when i get in the cab.

i run to the door of the hospital following him. they are running. i follow. i breeze right by security. they yell at me to get out that i am not allowed back.

i cry. and lean into my friends' arms.

the flashbacks were bad at first....one every minute i'd say. now they happen about three times a day.

hopefully there is a finite number that i must endure before they will stop. they intoxicate me. i feel everything as if it is happening over again. every cell in my body is consumed as if it is happening again.

i am ready for them to end

boston

will be seeing this soon. and so very in need of it....