We All Saw The Signs

The lack of friends and love interest.
The cell that never rang Saturday afternoon.
The parceling away of belongings,
every CD & DVD collection cannabilized.
The vague, disquieting disinterest,
appearing "above-it-all"--
At the parties.
At the mall.
At the house.
What was he doing down there?
Reading?

The insomnia.
The Harold Budd harmonics of a scooped metal bowl,
reverberating in dull suspended silence
somewhere at the bottom of a mossy well.
The lack of emotion.
The lack of excitement.
The never-being-pleased or in-the-moment.
He was always thinking future-tense...
but we know how disheartening that is now.

The lack of polish
and old clothes...cling-on's from some previous relationship.
Old Christmas presents now demoted,
pants w/ snapped zippers or button-less shirt sleeves.
The madman's hairline
(thank God he cut that!).
The same rote routines & slowly, ever so slowly...
the checkmarked sheet.
This done.
And that.
Only a few more things keeping...

His disappointment.
But what did we care?
His unrest.
Well, that's his bed...let him lie in it.
His moods.
Get over it!

******************************************

Yet I remember those moments in Chicago circa 1993.
The six months of sequential yet taffy Hell.
The rock bottom drama I enacted.
How I hurt.
Crying in the middle of the night,
perched on the hardwood floor like some animal,
crying so hard the tears pooled,
literally pooled on the floor.
That showed her!
And the half-assed attempt...
but scary nonetheless.
Drunk again, coming back from Neo
& filling the tub.
Saying "This is it, now. I've already promised"
(or promoted? in the alumni newsletter)
And blacking out.
Coming to underwater w/ the cold, icy fluid
in my mouth & nose...
couldn't even stay down there.
Some survivor's instinct...
so easy with only an inch 'tween life & peace.
Had I really meant it
there would have been blood.

And putting on a show in the same scrunched bathroom
when Carolyn came over that other night.
Sweeping mirrors & cologne off the counter,
shattering
caterwauling
performing.
"Here is my grief. Here is my despondency. My meglomania."
So melodramatic.
But wasn't she too?
Weren't we all in our twenties?

*******************************************

He was listless.
And he cancelled appointments.
And he had no interests besides The One.
Eating poorly.
Low maintenance of the soul.
He couldn't articulate.
He spent too much time on the internet.
He was aloof & cut us off.
Preparing us...?
He posted cryptic remarks,
and enacted new, more mature fantasies.
He gave everything up but got nowhere.
Truly, if success meant that much to him
he would just move?
It was always all or nothing...
but who saw something?
He feared jail and madness and homelessness
and humilation.
He lost his spark.
He lost his momentum.
He didn't even try.
He failed us.