The Primal Exile

Picture by Brendan McCarthy

I’m slapping band-aids on the cracks in the pavement,         
and gluing my dead skin mask
but the tremors already spread too far, too close,
and I have to reach inside my head,
and stitch the eyelids of the foggy eye.

The neighborhood hobos sense my fear
and burst into my apartment.
I stand tall and tell them I live here,
but the “I” is faded,
it comes unglued like old wallpaper.
The intruders push me aside,
Defacing my silence with
growls, groans, moans, and grunts.
While some collapse on my bed
like exhausted zombies,
others stuff my food
into toothless, ashen mouths.
I curl up in a corner, a sick dog,
Squeeze my eyes shut,
And summon dreams.
 

The bus is full of kids,
Chattering, chanting, pointing to the woods outside,
The nauseating green rushes by,
And then I see the distant top of a mountain,
chocked by swirling fog.
I sit at the back,
Small and ashamed,
Toxic exhaust fumes thick in my nostrils,
The puke bag I clutch in my lap
as white as my skin.

The beach is cold and empty,
the closed umbrellas like frozen ghosts
stuck between the gunmetal sea and the leaden sky,
the sand as heavy as my hangover.
It starts raining,
and I grab my vodka with a distant waxy hand
and run for shelter on wobbly legs.
Squinting through the torrent of spit,
I step toward the entryway to a seedy motel
but my approach alerts a mangy-looking yellow cur,
and its frenzied barking calls the whole pack
and they’re on my heels
as I run cursing this metal morning
of rabid teeth and celestial spit.

The train picks up speed
chugging in the rhythm of my galloping heart,
its whistle mocking.
I get hammered at the redneck tavern near the tracks.
I’m broke and the owner asks me to dig a hole in the backyard
to cover my tab.
The yard is choked by blood-splattered weeds;
I dig the pit next to the rusted carcass of a car
And fill it with shards of broken beer bottles,
as the boss said.
The sweaty labor sobers me up
And I hear the whistle of an incoming train.
I run again through the gravel toward the trucks
But my legs feel heavy, scraping against the rocks.
I gaze down in terror:
the stumps of my upper legs were stuck to sand hourglasses,
the heavy sand gathered in the lower bulbs.
I fall head-first
and fists of stones shatter the windshield of my face,
and the glass of my legs.
A bitter axiom occurs to me:
strewn glass trash can never catch a train.

The seedy motel room reeks of stale guests,
cheap bug repellent and cigarette smoke.
The wallpaper is vomit hardened on plastic flowers,
and the bed is a brick of moldy lasagna.
An anemic, insectile buzz comes from the nightstand.
I pick up the receiver with a waxy hand. “Hello?”
“Hey, sweetie,” my mom said, “we were looking for you everywhere,
dad and I.
How are you?”
I put on the broken mask of words, “Not good. I….I want to come home.”
A hesitating break followed by fake enthusiasm, “Of course, what a great idea, honey!
We’re here, waiting for you.
We moved from the last place, now that it’s only the two of us,”
strained laughter,
“We’re right across from the cancer in your uncle’s eyes
on the street with sinking houses
we rent a roomy basement just under another basement.
I’m here knitting blankets of dirt
while your dad is racing roaches on the bricked windows.
He’s petting his tumor while we watch the news on the cracked screen,
he likes how the stomach growth is purring.
Just follow the chatter of dentures, my angel,
and the buzz of pacemakers,
right by the dumpster with a broken couch on the side,
crawling with stray dogs ripped in half,
you’ll be sure to find us, sweetie.

We’re here holding our breaths, missing you deeply.”