the eighteenth message

she's still writing her love poems, so much more powerful than mine ever 
were, her words sticking like syrup and wet with the tears she must be 
crying for you, must be right now, forgetting to call silly boys because 
really all she wants is you...you with her forever, you in her dreams at 
night, you reading her children stories and you nestling her under those 
big strong arms and that's what she wants, her heart yearns for it...and 
mine just wants to dissappear sometimes, to find a crevice in the sole 
under the foot and ride the bottom of someone's shoe to another world, it 
could be so easy...pinstriped suits and buisness world and mutlilated 
hearts on the baricades where i sweep up the ashes and toss my hair full 
forward and live in a symbiotic dream sequence with the rabbits finding 
watership down...four o one and the eighteenth message reminds me that 
captain kirk is dead, kirk and jamie on the bus with the surge cans in 
their pockets talking about some wrestling game i always laughed at and 
never understood and playing with my toys and laughing with me 
dancing...and kirk with his video games and me passing silly notes to him 
in the middle of history class because there's nothing else to do, and 
he's a nice kid, you know? and lo and behold, only kirk left behind with 
enough faith that i would ever make it to my own prom, five minutes before 
midnight and he's the only one left, just to see me dressed in white, just 
to see alice a princess for a second....puck on one arm, with that 
disbelief look in his eyes, that utter amazement...it was so easy to 
inspire him. or maybe he was just a really good actor...he told brian, 
last night, he said "what about alice's nightmares? why doesn't she say 
goodbye?" i don't like goodbyes, kirk, you knew that at graduation...did 
you ever get to school? did you ever start out on your own, did you begin 
to understand anything i ever said? kirk, i can't say goodbye...the word 
sticks in my throat to my tonsils, even when it's needed i can't push it 
out, my trachea blocks it...my windpipe closes up and i choke, i sputter, 
i fumble to get the words out...i want to disbelieve it, bring you back, 
it's only mortality, don't you see you can get above that? can't you 
see...we're the only people on this island, remember? assasin that you 
were, and spy, and all of it imaginary which made it all the more real...i 
can't say goodbye, kirk, not yet. why did you go? and yes and yes i know a 
little rain must fall and even though it's cold it still washes away the 
dirt...but my soul is so stained, and the nightmares, the nightmares 
kirk...the boxes i am trapped in, the funhouse of mirror after mirror in 
ultimate reflection...kirk, i can't be strong anymore. i could push them 
all out of the way back when i was invincible...but now there's posion in 
my heart and i suck at the wound and still the night grows blacker and 
blacker still...and i should stop reading so much, i should stop prying 
and trying to discover anything, it's only going to make me hurt, to see 
another array of words that counter mine so well...misplaced and 
dislodged, stuck in the center of something that is never going to end, is 
never going to peace itself and smooth the wrinkles through, something 
that is awakened every other weekend or so, something that hurts so much 
it seems half of the entire world knows it...and me not wanting to get in 
the way, me wanting to run...it's almost easter. she died on easter, you 
know, kirk, the only other one who was ever taken away from my world, the 
only other one who stopped breathing this universe beside you...and i was 
so young, with my little poems and paragraphs and shrines to her, and her 
horses, not understanding...and now you, kirk, you and everyone else, you 
and the silly tshirts with the strange logos i could never read, you 
running through the mall with me on field trips, all of us playing cards 
at lunch just because no one else would let us sit at their table...my 
heart hurts so much anymore, it twists and turns and does somersaulrts and 
lives in a world of perpetual confusion...and i just want to step out of 
the way, to backtrack, to pin myself up in a heaven above it all and write 
until my book is finished...my nest, my assortment of colours...where is 
your strange slow way of talking now, pilgrim? your speech to the clouds, 
your voice disseminated, and on an anniversary, and something stuck inside 
like a penknive, and something carved its way out like one of geiger's 
infamous creatures, and something is still lodged there, stuck. the 
stagnant realm of tears trying to cleanse the confusion away...it happens 
in droplets. love...i can still see love somewhere, but i've placed it 
beyond anyone's handshake...tumultuous, am i lost? are these the seeds you 
dropped, kirk? are we going to plant a garden? can i borrow a pencil? i 
just wanted to write a poem or two...yes, i'm writing a book...do you want 
to see? it's okay if you don't understand it all...nobody does. 
charlotte's life is an engima, even to charlotte, and she stands in the 
rain in the asphalt world waiting for her brother to show up, waiting for 
absolution or forgiveness...."but i can't give you those, charlotte," he 
whispers, and she knows, only love...and love she bathes herself in and 
love she watches fish and love she lets the curls dry and turn blond and 
love she curls up in the blankets and refuses to wake up...and love if 
only she could anymore, if only i could, there's charlotte sleeping there 
because the infra-ray structure of this millenium hurt her eyes too 
much...i have to say goodbye, don't i, kirk? to you, to all of them...my 
life passes through like an amtrack, and the faces, they remain in 
aftershock after a while...maybe i could have friends too, you know, the 
ones that last forever, the ones you've known since you were three, the 
ones you went to school with and shared the everything of everything 
with...but no, it's not for me, not for the gypsy girl...she loves hard 
and then leaves, with a few faces still imprinted but most of them wash 
away with the tide with all of the other unicorns...but there is no 
forever for alice, love forever and leave forever, but never stay...the 
west wind is coming, and when you make someone happy it's time to find the 
fire escape...you are only an apparition, you only exist in the most 
imaginary way...i'm scared, though, i don't want to say goodbye, kirk, i 
don't want to let go...you made a human being out of me, you made me taste 
the earth, you pumped my blood full of caffeine with bottles of surge and 
we were ready to go, with our paintbrushes in mister lamb's class, we 
could conquer all and anything...and i was going to be a bush pilot in 
alaska, and then i was just going to move to ireland and live in some log 
cabin somewhere with the puck....there is no planning ahead, no future...i 
am only here for right now, if you blink i could disappear...jack went 
under, and rose had to survive, had to take what he had given her and do 
everything she could with it...but she didn't exist there, in her head, 
she went on...she didn't even speak of it to anyone for years and years 
until the beginning of the movie....the beginning of the movie. the 
middle, the end, it's all scene changes, you film it all separately, and 
there are casualities, but it's time to say goodbye, isn't it, kirk?

don't be dismayed at goodbyes.
a farewell is necessary before you can meet again.
and meeting again, after moments, or lifetimes,
is certain for those who are friends.