Alone with Other People by Gabby Bess

Author:Gabby Bess [Bess, Gabby]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Civil Coping Mechanisms
Published: 2013-12-19T21:00:00+00:00

STEVE BUSCEMI EYES

Supine, I am watching TV.

In the dark, light moves against the wall

behind me as the scenes change on the TV

and nothing else happens

but night turning back into day. I witness it:

The nothingness, the feeling of wasting my day off from work. I think about ingesting caffeine

to make myself more of a person

that is motivated and interested in life.

5 am on a Friday is a time that doesn’t exist to me when I can sleep and my father is pulling

the trash can out onto the sidewalk.

Tonight/This Morning I have a distinct sense

of 5am and sadness in my stomach as I lay supine but I can’t cry like this

because of gravity, maybe. Who do I need

to email to improve my life?

When Kanye says, “Ain’t no tuition for having

no ambition/and there ain’t no loans

for sittin your ass at home,” he is making

eye contact with me.

Outside there is a singular bird seemingly shrieking out

into nothing, performing the sadness that I project onto her. It sounds

like a nervous breakdown,

I know this. I feel it

in the vibrato and the tree

branches, given temporary meaning, clutched by light bird feet,

feel an immense sense of duty

to console. Feeling an immense

sense of duty, I want to call back to her but the bird wouldn’t understand

that she wasn’t alone. There is nothing I can immediately do

to fulfill my sense of duty to everything that is suffering. Keep in mind,

that I would hurt someone

if I knew who to hurt. Am I

the ultimate goodness?

On the TV,

Steve Buscemi looks sad, the way his eye folds sag, though he smiles and laughs

with slicked back hair.

He waits tables through the TV screen,

making the lights move on the wall behind me.

I lay and I watch him

I feel myself not cry

I hear the bird shriek

and then become apologetic sounding:

softer, slower, desperate,

and then silent to my ears.

But the bird can shriek at differing decibels, heard or unheard to me, and I can only remain supine; Steve Buscemi can always wait tables through the TV screen like this,

even in death,

and I can watch him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.