chap~book: A small book or pamphlet containing poems, ballads, stories, or religious tracts.

It's what might have been

It's not the things that I can't change that bother me.
I said that I'd always be okay if I only had you with me.
It's not the sleep that I can't find that drives me mad.


I was taking pictures of you in the park and it was May.
I turned around to find my coffee and you wandered away.
It's not the things that I can't change that bother me.


I had every bit of etiquette piped into my subconscious.
So when the cops came to interview me I was too composed.
It's not the sleep that I can't find that drives me mad.


They said I had it too together. I didn't dare to laugh.
I couldn't bring myself to cry, even on my own behalf.
It's not the things that I can't change that bother me.


When they took away the camera and developed the film,
They found a hundred pictures of an empty horse, impaled.
It's not the sleep that I can't find that drives me mad.


Only the voice of discretion keeps me from screaming.
I know you were there before, and now I have no meaning.
It's not the things that I can't change that bother me,
It's not the sleep that I can't find that drives me mad.

Villanelle for Possibility, in Prose

It's not the the things that I can't change that bother me. I was always one of those people who took it all in stride. And when I found out I was having you, I only smiled and held it all in. When I saw your face, I said I'd always be okay if I only had you with me. You never slept, but I didn't mind. It's not the sleep that I can't find that drives me mad. It's that I can't find you.

I was taking pictures in the park and it was May. The sky was blue as the typical robin's egg and speckled with hot air balloons. I bought you cotton candy and put you on the carousel. The last time I saw you, you were laughing and waving. I told you to meet me at the gate. I turned around to find my coffee and you wandered away.

I had every bit of etiquette piped into my subconscious. My parents raised me right. I raised a discreet disturbance, and asked if anyone had seen you. But no one had seen a thing. I held it all in. So when the cops came to interview me, I was too composed. I spent the night in a room that smelled like coersion, coffee, and fear. I never closed my eyes. It's not the sleep that I can't find that drives me mad.

They said I had it too together. Even when I was breathing in a mist of rage and spit from the man across the table, I never flinched. It was ludicrous, but I didn't dare to laugh. They said I should be weeping, but I couldn't bring myself to cry, even on my own behalf. It's not the things that I can't change that bother me.

So they left me there to stare at the mirrored glass that threw my own face back at me. When they took away the camera and developed the film, they found a hundred pictures of an empty horse, impaled. And they said you'd never been. It's not the sleep that I can't find that drives me mad.

I'm waiting on the corner for a cab, as empty as that horse and as impaled. Only the voice of discretion keeps me from screaming. You were mine, I held you, I would know if you'd never been here. I know you were there before, and now I have no meaning. They showed me documents and certificates, but nothing changes reality. It's not the things that I can't change that bother me. I'm one of those people who take it all in stride. I can't sleep; I'm still looking for you. It's not the sleep that I can't find that drives me mad.

'It's What Might Have Been' and 'Villanelle for Possibility, in Prose' written as exercises from The 3 A.M. Epiphany

Salt

The pillar stands strong in the desert, long after the clay feet of kings have eroded in the wind and their gold statues lie face down and suffocating in the sand. The pillar glitters like a jewel in the rising sun, blazes like a beacon at noon, bleeds ruby light when the sun lies down. She remains, locked down and crystalized through the ages, a mysterious element trapped in the body of a woman, a woman looking back on an empty place. Shed no tears, shed no sorrow, lock down compassion in your veins, crystalize yourself, she says. Immortality awaits. Compassion stands untouched in the wastelands, the wind whistles around her and scrubs clean the ground of Sodom and Gomorrah. She waits for the water to wash her into the rivers of the world, waits for the rain to take her to the cups of the strong, the wine of the righteous.

Scaramuccia struggles in the desert, the camels hate his hide. Thirst wrings his tongue out and steals the last of his swallows. Desperation elevates him from petty thief to great explorer. He owes a half a million dollars, half a million more than the dust in his pockets. Zeleos called from half a world away. Scaramuccia needs half a million dollars and a plane ticket. He leaves his empty Evian bottle for the sands and wind to dispose of... he struggles on.

Somewhere between delerium and death, Scaramuccia wakes at the feet of the Goddess. The moonlight dyes her white and silver. Her feet are as fine and veined as they were four thousand years ago and more. She comes for him. Scaramuccia kisses her feet in the sand and feels his lips purified. She is luminous and exquisite but her face is turned away from him, looking back. Look at me, Scaramuccia cries, clutching at her robes. Look forth. See me. She does not see him, her face is turned from him. He beats her with his cracked and broken fists, strikes her with his blood and tears. See me.

Four thousand years and more, she stands, locked in her purity and silence. Scaramuccia is relentless. He throws her down, drags her away through the grit, stains her with his bleeding hands. He has no time for her perfection, for her wistfulness and backwards gaze. Scaramuccia needs half a million dollars and a plane ticket. The camels hate his hide, their fleas love his flesh. He sacrifices her on the auction block, puts her up for sale.

Scaramuccia has a million dollars more than dust in his pockets and the statue packed in a wooden crate.. He gives away the Goddess to a man in a suit and shakes his hand. Zeleos is at the airport. Zeleos kisses the scabs on his fists and washes his feet in a hotel room half a world away from the desert. The rain starts to fall outside their window.

In the garden of Gratutius, the servants stand the Goddess on a pedestal among the lillies. The rain falls on the just and the unjust, on Scaramuccia and Zeleos and Gratutius and the Goddess. The water runs off her body, down Scaramuccia's face, from Zeleos' hair, down Gratutius' umbrella in the hands of his servants and into the soil. Scaramucci and Zeleos live happily ever after. The Goddess erodes in the rain. Gratutius withers of his cancers and his ashes scatter at her feet. The righteous and the powerful complain about the taste of their water, wonder at the flavours of their wine.

Precog

Zeleos loathes Mumbai. He hated it when it was awash in camels and turbans and figs and silver and cedar and gold, hated it when the temples were tiled the colour of seas and skies and when the walls were whitewashed so bright they made the eyes ache. Mumbai is prosperous spires of glass and steel now, a diamond set in a ring of teeming slums, and Zeleos despises it anew. He tugs at his shirt instinctively, still unnerved a little by the way it slides over the flatness of his new chest.

Scaramuccia is late. The advent of trains, planes, and spacecraft have done nothing to improve his timeliness. Zeleos flexes his wrist and nanites under his skin luminesce to report the time. An hour late. He's been stuck in Mumbai for an hour and Scaramuccia is somewhere out there with a pharoah's pendant in his pocket while Zeleos thumbs the acid suppressor built in under his breastbone to keep his stomach from devouring itself while he waits. The polished steel wall presents a lithe man in an expensive suit staring back at him. The halogen lamps of the waiting area highlights the sleek black gloss of his curls and the sharp lines of his features. Zeleos scowls at himself and flexes his wrist again, wondering if he's annoying his resident timekeepers.

"Waiting for someone?" The voice is lubricated with snake oil and tinted with humour. A lanky man in ill-fitted clothing collapses in the chair next to Zeleos, draping a too-familiar arm over his narrow shoulders. Zeleos looks over into unrepentant eyes the colour of warm beer, half-veiled by a fringe of limp, sandy hair.

"No." It's true, he's not waiting anymore.

It's raining when they step out of the depot and Zeleos flags down a rickshaw.

"Rain's always so reassuring," Scaramuccia says happily as they settle into the seat, sheltered by the little cart's plexiglass canopy. He presses something warm and metallic into Zeleos' hand.

"Why's that?" Zeleos tucks the pendant away in his own pocket. He'll take it on the last leg of its journey to its new owner tonight.

"Falls on the just and the unjust, it does," Scaramuccia points out, lighting a cigarette. His grin is enough to crack halos in heaven, if Zeleos still believed in that sort of thing. "Makes me feel all equal."

Zeleos has seen civilizations come and go, he's bought and sold the Cross itself three times now. He tells himself that Scaramuccia's constancy, at least in being a scoundrel, is comforting. Even as he holds out his hand, Scaramuccia passes him the cigarette. "I hate Mumbai," he murmurs as he exhales. This too is constant, and he is comforted again.