in an effort to get people to look into each other's eyes more, the government has decided to allot each person exactly one hundred and sixty-seven words, per day.
when the phone rings, i put it to my ear without saying hello. in the restaurant, i point at chicken noodle soup. i am adjusting well to the new way.
late at night, i call my long- distance lover and proudly say: "i only used fifty-nine today. i saved the rest for you."
when she doesn't respond, i know she's used up all her words, so i slowly whisper i love you, thirty-two and a third times. after that, we just sit on the line and listen to each other breathe.
Don't move. I have something to ask you but i need your lips to open my mouth and i need your mouth to eat my words. Listen. Radio silence screams behind my ears. Two pessimists with fire burning through their fingertips, scorching skin and then rolling in salt and sweat. Yet I brushed off your tears. Hear me: it's true I'm repaying your advances, pulling your progress so far forward that we both lose our breath but remember i put your hand down on my face and remember: I love the desperate yellows and reds that paint themselves across the sky at night----
Element of response to natural disaster that black leather jacket so last summer in that last summer we breathed in
breathe in breathe in couldn't let it out
couldn't get out blue blue dead, drowning blue you filled my lungs like the smoke from your cigarette a long kept secret hidden right behind your lungs turns, rots away this natural disaster element response delay- turn, keep breathing blue
In the cold or in the fire O'er the old fence of barbed wire In the fields The Fall reveals The singing wheels that will inspire And alite an inner fire
Be it dismal, be it lite In a cornfield late at nite my senses bare And nothing there To melt away the site Of a soft an inner lite
O, I wish I may I wish I might Just get the wish I wish tonite.
For wont of want to wander near Or far to feel afar from fear To know that there's Not anywhere I'd fare to disappear That's as good enough as here.
At last i've had a dream of kissing you and though my passion's not completely done, the fire that through my veins has sweetly run has partially appeased the flame i know.
After this gesture, my relieved soul can laugh a little at its stolen pleasure, in past instances some comfort I may treasure, and I will find a cure to make me whole.
My restored senses now begin, again, to sleep and having left me [five] more days to weep, within my eyes at length sleep takes your place; And though it seems so cold to even view, revokes for me its quality of ice and shows itself almost as warm as you.
When it was still there is August my landlady threatened to call the fire department. The pine needles were already so thick and dry and sharp on the carpet, even with socks on you couldn't walk without drawing blood. But I was in love and it was bigger than anything they'd ever shown on television. My Christmas tree had become a Magnificent Obsession.
It was more than the red, black, fuschia, and turquoise lace draped around it, or the Rudraksha, crystal, and angelskin coral. It was more than the gracefully curved plastic corkscrew drinking straw and the brass pennywhistle all the way from Ireland balanced skillfully in the nether branches. I was more than the fact that they never let me have one when I was a kid because I was Jewish.
There was something that made me keep that tree through Valentine's Day and hang little pastel hearts all over it. There was something, on Easter, that made me hang all those hollow eggs I decorated myself with Day-Glo paint and macaroni. I had to stop letting people over - they didn't understand. My Christmas tree and I celebrated the Forth of July together. I wore a red, white, and blue jumpsuit. The tree wore at least 100 tiny American flags. You see, when they said my Christmas tree had become a fire hazard, I knew they didn't mean somebody would strike a match nearby. It was a fire hazard because someday it would spontaneously combust from the intense heat of its own beauty. And I was waiting, ready to see at least one of us go out in a supremely self-sufficient blaze of glory. 'Twas right there on page 433 in the Book of Lists between the brain radiation levels of 60 celebrated persons and a collection of 10 people who had stigmata There it was in glorious black and white: "Eight Cases of Spontaneous Combustion." And while I realized I might never develop holy wounds on my hands and feet, and the only person who knew how to measure brain radiation died in 1952, deep inside I knew that some day, with the flawless timing of a fine Swiss watch, I had as good a chance as anybody to spontaneously combust.
Just like Euphemia Johnson, age 68, who Spontaneously blazed one rainy day in England while drinking her afternoon tea. Or Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Rooney who crossed over together one Christmas Eve during the second chorus of "Silent Night" when Mrs. Rooney suddenly turned into a pillar of fire and Mr. Rooney died from the smoke in the air. That one went deep. Now I know when people say "Do you love me?" they really mean "If I spontaneously combusted, would you inhale the smoke?"
But best by far, Miss Phyllis Newcombe, age 22, who probably spent 3 or 4 months perfecting a pink organdy gown with pearl buttons, a polka dot sash, and baby blue lace at the collar and cuffs, just to wear to the dance hall that night on August the 7th when she waltzed with the prettiest man there - the one with the strongest arms and the wisest eyes and the prettiest white teeth. The music was like satin and velvet; like those luscious chocolate caramels she once got for Valentine's Day. She was so radiant.
Everyone was staring. Even the people waltzing kept craning their necks to look at her. Something was becoming more and more curiously alive about the room It seemed the air itself was waltzing 1-2-3…1-2-3…1-2-3…1-2-3… It must have been on a 2 that Miss Newcombe smiled exquisitely and happily burst into flames.
Neither Miss Newcombe's partner nor the pink organdy gown were so much as singed. For a split second the gown hovered in mid-air as if confused. Then, with nothing left to cover, it dropped delicately to the floor. like a rose petal.
I like to imagine that Miss Newcombe's partner understood - that he picked up the dress and quietly left the hall while everyone else went crazy.
People and Christmas trees who spontaneously combust go to a secret place Where everything in switched on and awake. Those little golden particles you see when you're exited are constantly vibrating in the air.
Miss Newcombe had to combust. She'd never be 22 again in that gown on that night with that man with those teeth. Here, she moves in a state on constant consummation with the dazzling uniqueness of an albino giraffe. All the trees are Christmas trees with silver garlands and sequins and those electric glass oraments with bubbling water. Every moment is always, always, always enough.
