Jocelyn Saidenberg
F**K DEATH
for lu
Sucking, I open the door awaiting one another. Looking down from landing, on silent
demise, stair well. She sleeps in a curl. Lurking somewhere, are you? Beating it, I try to
include. But that glittering ball you throw up at me, impedes my advance. Subsiding, I
sooth myself into a nocturnal hand, the touch turns my stomach. Early morning hours
hold out a certain frisson. She is still sleeping nose tucked into armpit. It haunts you too,
doesn’t it? Every time you emerge from the subway station, sure which way to turn in
your lightness. The dying are so rigorous. Ripping out the fabric no longer thinking about
the lost affection or perishing time.The cliff which kittens which heartbeat.“right”
“we’ll clear out”
“if everybody”
“right”
“we’ll clear out”
“right”
“you think we can get that far”
“if everybody”
“right, right”
“and besides we’ll steal”
“we’ll clear out, right”
“right”
“you think we can get that far”
“if everybody”
“and besides, we’ll clear out”
“right”
“right, we’ll steal something”
“think we can get that”
“steal something if everybody”
“right”It must have been midnight, starting up with that whirring noise, the inner life game had
begun, we waited behind the sink, we got dressed, under the staircase, that valley of
desolation, we walked quickly, no one was surprised, hardly, we hurried along the road,
sly gestures pointing the way. You sing: “I am here, now, reaching the end. If possible.”In the end, the awful parts, more dreaded in the past, haunting itself and animated by
these parts, past, were a solace, soothing the bitterness in a lull. Those times, sordid
shadows delimiting the incorporeal sluggishness. It’s not just what they say that drives
me toward superhuman invective. And then, sweet kitten, you call me your little flower
and I melt, kitten, you murmur at me, calling me a tramp, turning me inside out with
tenderness.So that will, kitten, you select, willingly, you will to be willed, imploring, will-less, your
eyes, the record, the sight of them delicious, solemnly creased. You want to burn it up,
eyes asking “What do you want” hardly audibly tone. With a vehemence that stirs your
heart, you admit, on the harm ahead, you fling your oblivion, all they suggested and
contained, your peculiar obligation, freely, whence you will.Your certain abandon was proof, furtive good wishes being sent from far away. You
whisper to me, a disappointed squeak. I study you in a constant state of arousal, kitten,
alternating with shame, your fawn bracelet has exhausted the terms of our evening
together, I used them for you. Doesn’t it haunt you too? That shadow we both drown in,
extravagant in gesture. We apprentice ourselves to it. You let it be, sly tonight, buried
during the day.I walk out into the nocturnal street, nocturnal and silent in a manner. I wait. Feeling
inside and out for weather and sounds. Directing my attention with recognition, aim. You
have been waiting for a long time. If possible. The nocturnal’s composed of hatch marks.
Listing. Counting. No passion or expectation in awaiting, the train approaches and its
coming sound pulls us in, intensity and push, you board. Waiting for one another.
Waiting in front, we rendezvous before us, stand with each other. In front and before.
