I have been there before:
.
I have let people ride
all over me, breaking
a smile – how could you know
possibly, that this hurts?
.
I’d repeat in my head:
.
I’d rather be, always,
a tormented friend than
a rejected lover.
I choose seeing things twice
.
over never again.
I want tell you that it’s over, I want to tell you that it was just right.
I always liked how you kissed my forehead;
How you pinched my cheeks between your thumb and your index finger
– I probably still do.
I want to say these words.
Instead, I become ever more silent: I fade out and fade away slowly.
You will barely notice my vanishing.
I expect you to call me up and I truly hope you don’t.
Speaking up is hard whenever you are near.
I haven’t practiced my words.
Do not get me wrong: I want to be around, like a latent energy.
Like a wave in the sea, I might come back.
Probably in a different shape and surely not right now.
I see the tide is low.
you never needed to
promise sweets and kittens,
In order that I would
blindly follow downstairs
–
I was born a hostage.
–
you never needed to
lure me with a reward,
in order that I would
compete in this love game.
–
I was born a hostage.
–
you never needed to
drive up in a white car,
in order that I would
take a ride in the trunk.
–
I was born a hostage.
–
all you ever needed
was my hot and keen mind:
have your pretty lies hatch
in my free obsession.
–
was I not born a hostage?
–
you only ever had
to force an open door;
enter and never leave;
let Stockholm’s do its job.
–
was I not born a hostage?
–
drive up in a white car!
promise me sweets and kittens!
lure me with a reward!
take a ride in the trunk!
enter and never leave!
blindly follow downstairs!
have your lies hatch!
compete in this love game!
–
was my hot and keen mind
all you ever needed?
has Stockholm’s done its job,
in my free obsession?
–
who is the hostage now?
I approach you
the same way
I approach
a rusk dissolving
in my mouth.
—
once broken
into pieces,
bit by bit,
you are easier
to take in.
—
pushed slightly
to my palate,
I wait patiently
for you to go
soft and delicate.
—
right then, I’ll push
a little harder
with my tongue:
firmly determined
I remain like this.
—
as your brittleness
is mellowed;
I can taste
you everywhere –
and swallow.
I have squeezed out my city
for its mellow sweet waters at dawn
and bitter fluorescent juices at dusk.
I drank from ever-interrupted flows,
took in the whole load: gagged, swallowed.
—
I have squeezed out my city
for rivers to entrench themselves
for rivers not to feed, but to become the sea.
I liked to call its waves coincidence,
although I, the moon, had summoned the tide.
—
I have squeezed out my city,
over and over with my bare hands.
that means: wrung out, pressed, extracted
until the last drop died;
cried, as I myself ran dry – and away.
I even carried my blood home with me last night. leaving
behind no stain on your too soft bed, despite the slaughter
you had done to my heart and parchment paper uterus.
now watch me as I creep beneath your house premenstrual,
staring at your windowsill: Come see me again, wide open.
Prolifically enlightened, I am only yours to kill.
and then the details
come back to me:
like boomerang-shaped needles.
the farther I throw them away,
the harder they pierce my chest
and my weakened stomach wall
to scar me with the stories
about the shape of your upper ear
the one I could have been
or could still be – roaming.
don’t you dare flatter yourself for the reciprocity
I am a Schrödinger’s conundrum
I want you and do not, both at the same time
.
don’t you dare flatter yourself for any of my moves
when I’m telling you that it takes two to Tango
I might know the steps, yet you sure took the lead
.
don’t you dare flatter yourself for the fire that I start
I was just about to light another cigarette
to blow some smoke into your face
.
don’t you dare flatter yourself for the grasp
by the low-fenced window side
it was wide open and I was close to fall
.
don’t you dare flatter yourself for the song we sing
as close as we were that night, you’re not the one
running in my head, nor breaking my chest
.
don’t you dare flatter yourself for my boldness and my courage
they’re my possessive claims’ only disguise
washing off beneath your tongue
.
and don’t you dare try me again –
instead, pretend as if this never was
and we, in fact, did not exist.
at the Southern corner of the station
(where red steel blends into the tracks,
below the blurred graffiti creations):
try to not get stuck in the cracks,
Keep right until on fresh tar,
turn left, avoid the crosswalk,
ride on and mind the parked cars,
stop beside the grey block.
—
here, before and after town,
they’ve recently torn down
the house where we first kissed.
—
in a room with no doors,
nothing but us on wooden floors,
It must have caused a lot of dust.
