They Were Fighting Over My Body
Talk about skeletons
wearing costumes from a nineteenth century closet.
Talk about your disconnected thoughts
and futile attempts to free yourself
from the noose affixed to the ceiling.
Who whitewashed the walls?
As always, an audience breaths in on us
from doors opening into closets never visited.
So many faces, not a single beautiful
one among them, as if beauty
were something rare. The skeletons
swing brooms at each other, improbable
weapons in their brittle war,
the clacking knocking me off kilter.
Under my feet rests the clown of my dreaming self
wearing the brown-and-white striped pajamas
I never liked, and a mask that allows me to dream
without perturbation. The eyeholes
reveal trembling blue-veined eyelids,
all the evidence one needs to affirm the obvious.
One of the skeletons strikes my heels
with its broomstick and jeers at me as I
oscillate between it and its partner,
also jeering, also hitting my heels.
I wish I could shout obscenities at them,
but something obstructs my mouth
and I can only groan deeply in my chest.
This is not about feeling sorry for myself.
This is not about actualizing my despair.
But I don’t know how to tie a noose.
I blame it on the skeletons, they did this.
They did this to me, and all the faces
in the closets do not disagree.
Possible Side Effects
The ins and outs of the current buzz
manufactured vertigo in the bozo
out to deliver his obscene message
to the masses still enthralled
with his fright wig and balloon pants.
Everybody asks the same question:
Why are we smaller than we used to be?
I myself am shrinking, or have been
shrunk like an untreated cotton sweater
put through the ringer one too many times.
I started wearing faux leather pants
but chafing restricted my movements
and people took to gawking at my
awkward gait. None had the heart
or the balls to tell me how ridiculous
I looked, and it took a close friend
laughing until his appendix burst
to convince me to change my wardrobe.
I don’t hate this life, I merely find it
annoying most of the time.
I find people annoying, but I also
have grown to despise the sound
of my own voice and the expression
on my face when I glance in the mirror.
What I see is a look of guilt,
like someone who knows they
have no reason to be smiling like that.
About the artist
Salvatore Difalco writes from Toronto, Canada.
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