disguise: May. 23, 2002 (5:46 pm)

everyone wants me on medicine. i fear that my depression is what allows me to write, and if i feel better it will all be gone. (jill, you talk of this too..but your reason isn't chemical). people keep asking me if being a good writer is worth suffering.

and i keep thinking that i hate how i am, maybe i should get help. but i'm to afraid of who i really am, or maybe this is just a disguise.

she

her poet body securly below mine, looking to her face i see the streams of brown on her cheeks from earlier today. circling around dupont, hiking up connecticut, in the quest for a pay phone found miles from my house. her eyes are shut, she's thinking--clearly about me.

i kiss her. expect to see her body tremble in response. because here we are, months after we said it. in a small bed. there are no records on the wall, my bookshelfs are empty and my furniture is new. but we're together, and with her eyes closed that is the only thing she knows. her lips don't move, her body lays flat against my bed. as if she is a corpse. i am kissing her and she is somewhere else. unfeeling, or perhaps beyond here. oh, there is a slight movement; the stream becomes unparched--this is impossible.

if she were on prozac she would be a much better fuck.

she ii

she worries the medicine will ruin her soul. that she only writes well because she's depressed. she tells me stories, avoids my questions. she tells me about him, who she is illogically bound to; i realize how many others she loves. including my friend, who comes over now, who lends her philosophy books.

we kissed once, after her and her ex-boyfriend ended again, yet all we ever talk about it others.

later, we eat chineese food and sit in a park. more stories. she still doesn't look at me. shows me the cut that causes the problems. thanks me for talking with her. steps on the bus and travels away.

if she were on prozac she would have better stories to tell.

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