Requiem for the Boy with Face Tattoos in my Apartment

Requiem for the Boy with Face Tattoos in my Apartment

Sophia Blue Coen

“I suspect there will never be a requiem for a dream, simply because it will destroy us before we have the opportunity to mourn its passing.”

— Hubert Selby Jr.

Jennifer Connelly was the first person I ever hated & now I don’t trust people with perfect brows. What I learned about heroines, I learned early.

We’ve only got two spoons in this place.

Ever watch a movie & it fucks you up for a while?

Your forehead says to dust we shall return = DNR = do not return (to sender). As in, dust isn’t reassuring when a teaspoonful can destroy you.

CVS got Narcan for $150 a dose & I go ahead & get two. That shit’s immortality in a needle, bringing back people who’ve been dead = assurance = rewind.

I’m trying to think of a synonym for hell & today labyrinth will do.

A different movie is screening:

Somewhere an auntie is pressing play on a VHS copy of Labyrinth, leaving someone small alone, & disappearing to the basement.

Always take the locks off bathroom doors because the movies are never that different in the end. Injectable plot: Heroine relies on man. Heroine makes choices that can’t be undone Bittersweet.

(fastforward)

You’ve got the antonym for immortal in your hand & that shit is cut with something between waking up tomorrow, linoleum glued to your cheek or hospital gown molded to your emptied torso.

Ever see a movie for the first time & remember the ending?

You saunter around like your dad gave you trips to rehab every Christmas with a stocking stuffer of yes _____? & you answered sir everytime, while your mouth craved the simplicity of something else.

Bet you were the kid going cross-eyed on the playground blurring the wood chips together. Bet you played in the dirt too.

Someone sees a picture of you & says you look like a blue-eyed grave.

= method acting

One of those spoons turned up missing.

Ever try to dig to your antipode with a plastic spoon till you have to come inside for supper?

I keep placing my prayers in coffins so the Earth gets the message. Filling up all those holes I dug when I was a kid

Somewhere an auntie is clutching an antonym, just like you & it’s gonna end just like the movie & she’s gonna be just like Jennifer Connelly & sell dreams in exchange for something bitter parading around as sweet.

(but somethings can never be made cinematic, no matter how symmetrical your brows are)

The end-of-summer flies have been buzzing around in my room for weeks & I gotta wonder if their wings have eulogies written on them.

I’ve got requiems to attend, but I can’t remember where I buried all my prayers & I can’t find any spoons.

What are you digging now?

Somewhere a faucet is left running.

Somewhere a door knob refuses to twist open.

Somewhere on sweaty tile, you’re learning how to meet your maker & your lips spill out simple sounds: Nah I’m good man

Somehow they pry open the door & gaze down a hole from Kansas to the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Passing By Your Memory - Grace Dickerson