They are demolishing a building here, now the hammer drives through the windows, glass splinters everywhere glisten like morning dew, now it strikes a column and it shudders under the impact. Crowds mill around the yard, few stand with me and look perhaps as mesmerized as I am by falling concrete and twisted steel.

Soon everything would change, everything is changing even as I write: sun is curving behind this tree towards night, the tree's shadow is inching imperceptiably towards evening, clouds that rained throughout yesterday night are moving south to the sea, a guy has just kissed a girl, they are in love, I can see that from here, but soon they may not be anymore, a butterfly which must have transitioned from a puape a few days ago has just flapped its wings twenty times or more over a bed of marigolds,a few marigolds are already turning brown from golden, that house whose walls your voice glued together is falling apart and nothing seems to hold it up. And for no reason at all just as you had come, you have already left, only your memories remain hovering like dragonflies, sunning themselves around me.

They say that they will clear the mounds of mangled steel and shattered glass in a week. And just like that, soon nothing will remain.

2002:08:19 15:00 Atlanta

Walking up Ponce I am behest by winos and whores, some ask me for a couple of quaters to get drunk and some ask me if I need a hit of cocaine. My feet hurt from walking too much all afternoon, the sky is red, the blood is red and the usual symbolisms for love are red. But the sky will change soon, it's already changing as I write this, beyond the hill I see the quater moon and a star to keep it company. That star makes me feel cold, that star makes me jealous of the the pair of cats "in love" I saw today, makes me jealous of the guy who was following a whore with sagging breasts into a seedy hotel, his ten dollar bill in her hand.

I try to forget by beating my body into a pulp, my legs vibrate wonderfully like violin strings, a tiredness raises up as a convective current, it tries to sing "La la la", a lullbay to ease me into sleep, so that I can wake up again tomorrow morning and begin screaming in the bathtub as super hot water scalds my skin. I know I shouldn't punish myself, I know I should take it easy, but I don't know how I should begin to put up legs on the table or how to snag easy dates that will later take me home, feed me with their hands and put me to sleep. Maybe I should call the hotline to Dr Death, "Hello hello, how much does it cost for the injection and how much does it cost for the pill or super fun dates that involve zero commitment?"

FLASH BACK

And then in the Borders bookstore I stopped by, I know I know it's a wrong place to have gone into even if I was dying of thrist, for from all the aisles arose a digre composed by Pablo Neruda, "Oh asshole,don't you know love is so short and forgetting is so long? And if you don't buy a book of poems I wrote." Everything is sold these days, sales pitches. I am so and so, I have this piece of paper that says I am the Lord, my Father in Heaven gave me this degree so I am super expensive and no you don't qualify enough to be loved. I stand there and try to have a conversation with Pablo, he is a bald guy and maybe because of that the light reflects off his head and gives him a halo. I say, "Motherfucker, you are such a poor glue and such a pathetic waste of money. I can't believe that I once imitated you and drank you like wine, maybe it was the post coital bliss that scrambled my brains into surpy mush and made me exclaim that you are a genuis!"

Now when each of my veins burns as if they are atom bombing a thousand Hiroshimas and a thousand Nagasakais, I see the easy contrivance and the blinkers that covered my eyes. I used you like a cheap condom to belive what I wanted to belive then. But then why am I fighting you? For aren't we in the same esteemed company now, on the same side of the fence, ready to be put away, to be given a number by the Nazi Love Police and set up to be fried in the ultra modern oven called USA? Don't be afraid it's not that bad, see these scars just beneath this skin, I was done rare the previous time, then the Allies came in and hauled my ass out of here. But really they weren't Allies, they were phantoms, say shall I sing songs from Phantom of the Opera? "You alone can make my song take flight. It's over now, THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT." The curtain falls after this, I know dammit, I know, I saw this. I will sing this song as we are both swiftly purged and archived. What will be the file number, five six or seven? Who knows? There is enough junk in the world already, take me for example, a disposable. Take you for example, an old guy whose sales increase around Valentine's Day and now long dead.Very much disposable. So can your fucking digre and let me be. And no I will not visit that aisle where I sat one rainy night reading you, I prefer reading MAD today as I slowly go mad myself. I will laugh and scare the chicks who sit around reading "Yoga for Dummies" and similar junk.

Present

JesUSAves. Keys covered with blood. Goodnight.

I should be working now and should have been since seven this morning, but the day was too bright for eyes getting accustomed to darkness and despair and the legs too tired (from walking, caravans of footsteps all night on hollow streets) to stand before the mirror and look at my face that's molting like over ripe fruit.

When time passes and sweetness dries up, bitterness drips down from cold blue welts, drop by drop, like rain or tears, infintely slowly than the ticking of clocks.

I was there once, I was there by your side, it was the time of gloaming and we were walking through grass up an embankment. I pointed to the early moon through the wintering trees, you nodded and smiled in resonant understanding.

Now like Li Bai who on seeing the moon and remebered home, memories of you pass through me jerking me erratically in my version of electric shock therapy. I grope through them blinded and shout your name, "Hello Hello, can you hear me?"

Imagine a small fish, blind ofcourse, swimming through an irridiscent reef. I am like that fish and I wonder where did the circling sharks go ingnoring this willing banquet?

And yesterday( was it yesterday? I am losing my sense of time and direction.) when I was studying in a bookstore, Fields of Gold came over the radio. At the lines: "Her body rose when I kissed her mouth", I broke down.

I have lost all sense of shame and cry at all the inappropriate places. Thank heavens! few but walk here so my streaming tears manage to go by unnoticed and kindness is not extended, something if I take I think I will burn like a zepplin.

Except this morning I woke the house up, screaming in my sleep, "Don't go away." It was a passing dream that didn't wait and these are the passing days that wait even though I don't want them to.

Some things are like that.

2002:08:07 11:30 Atlanta Please call me.