the behavior of memory

I am searching for a break in the sky, some kind of knotted root with a long extension that I can grab onto. And although I am afraid of heights, I think I’m ready to be pulled up into the atmosphere and just dangle for awhile.

Here is the thing about memory. It arrives like a phone call.
Sometimes we remain too long and we run out of things to say or explain.
Sometimes the connection is so bad, you have no idea who is calling.
Sometimes, it is just a wrong number.

Here is what I remember:
There was a kiss between a pair of lips from New Jersey and ones who have lived in too many places to construct a formal mailbox. The rain was strong, though not enough to keep the drag queens and hustlers away from their favorite stomping ground. You pressed a ring onto a finger that never felt that kind of weight before. We walked several blocks to Greece and savored their cuisine. There was a zipper sewed into the sky that day, and some rebellious punk got hold of its end and unhinged the metal teeth. Cue: monsoon.

Here is what I remember:
Someone somewhere once told me that to remove the itch from mosquito bites, take finger with prominent nail, criss cross indentation into welt and this imprint will heal the discomfort. As I’ve gotten older, the bites have become bigger, louder, redder, and unlike most friends and lovers, they tend to stick around. My pale skin has been replaced by these violations. How much blood have they removed and am I better for it? Perhaps mosquitoes are meant to take some of our cells away to prohibit the overflow bubbling up in our bodies.

Here is what I remember:
A pounding thrust of body climbing up staircase with slurred tongue and teeth replaced by fumbling pills. I am going to workshop this memory and add in a crash of ambulance into childhood home. Shattered windows flying into exposed limbs and suddenly my family grows see-through. I will also add in a radio, plugged into purple-painted wall playing Whitney Houston’s, I Have Nothing. The walls fall down like flimsy velvet curtain and there is a realization that it is all just a music video stuck inside a family portrait of tragedy.

can’t run from myself/there’s nowhere to hide……….

Here is what I remember:
Love is a rerun of disappointments and I am traveling inside the warped images of myself. A woman kisses me with microwaved tongue: small and pre-heated. My organs search for the bright rainbow in my heart to grow neon again. Then, someone grabs onto my hip, presses their ghostly face against mine, whispers in my ear:
you removed that rhythmic contraption years ago.