Kyle Muntz - Voices

carving routes of drainage all into, out of my lungs. She made me less, made me

more than human, by

humoring me. As of now, I'd seen her thrice (once in life, again in refraction, and a precursor in dreams) and all three times,

she'd never

been alone.

:::::::::::::::::::: "I need to find her."

James held my shoulder. He said I really shouldn't.

"And you're going to help me," I said, "because you know where she's at." That might be true.

"If you find her," he said, "he'll send them for you."

"And if I wait," I said, "he'll come for me himself."

James sighed. He stuck a hand in his pocket. Loud music from another room

assaulted us. I was in the mood for loud music. Detached from the personal, it soothed me.

"If you tell me," I said, "I'll paint a huge banner of you in real colors all over main street, so no matter where you look, people will see you, and, without being, you can be everywhere at once."

"You're funny."

"I know."

"But really," he said. "Why do you tell such strange lies?"

"Because I've been spending too much time with girls," I said, "and they've been

teaching me how to lie."

"You're funny," he repeated.

"I know."

::::::::::::::::::::

I n a subway somewhere, in an old station where the rails don't work anymore, my train was getting ready for me.

I know.

You shouldn't say things like that so often.

::::::::::::::::::::

He screamed. I poked him in the stomach, a barrel of blubber.

He heaved. He said the world was hell already. His daughter came down the stairs, looking afraid. She was small, her clothes were small, and her breasts were small. She stood holding a blanket, looking absolutely, unspeakably afraid. Her nose wiggled, and her eyes squinted. All her life, her father had taught her to be afraid.

Still screaming, he muted himself. It wasn't that he was too ferocious, or even too stupid. This place was completely unremarkable. The longer I stood there the more I wondered if I could get away with hitting him. I had a pipe with me. A camera. Neon juxtapositions clouded electron gaping space. When he spoke, I wanted to make pretentious literary jokes about silence.

::::::::::::::::::::

"You know," James said. "Sometimes, I just don't understand you." "What is there to understand?"

"For one, how you can ask that question when you ask it so often, and so

furiously, that there are two of you, and you don't have any shadow." "I've told you before," I said. "It's because I like to play games with words."

::::::::::::::::::::

I climbed.

In the morning, to escape the storm, I holed up in a cave. Water dripped from the ceiling. Soon it would become a spear of ice, pointing cold fingers at the ground. It was too cold for anything natural to be living in here. I lit a fire and failed to thaw myself. Blue lines ate my skin. Freezing tendrils tore me.

To chase the boredom away, I wrote a poem

cold colorless lives in the echelon dusk

winking words silent shaking loudly feeding

the lies blatant hiding I shout quietly

at the backs of animals they ignore me

always so caught up in an empty

kind of life the animal

is nothing but fur and baking skin the innards

go moving as the bones shuffled across gruff

gruff gruff is the hard living really I wonder

how the mountain treats gofers without ever

coming around to fall it ignores the seasons

really I guess it has the right to ignore it's own the icicles are growing tonight cold in the

very depth of mountain caves firelight the

scent of melting water steaming drizzling up

to join a fluffing cloud in the sky

hands folding coolly over ligaments

tendons and whatever curling pieces

of bone

but stopped halfway in, for boredom.

::::::::::::::::::::

He's ready for you.

"Tell him I'm not interested." Then you'll

hear from him soon.

::::::::::::::::::::

For some reason, I seem to be talented at making enemies in high places who come thundering with fury of the whole goddamn searing sky (throwing fire, knocking down buildings) and despite brief feelings of coolness the whole situation just really doesn't appeal to me.

But it doesn't matter. I need to find her.

::::::::::::::::::::

"You owe me," I said. "You do."

James laughed, flipping a coin. He had other people to pay his debts. We both knew. I'm not sure why I bothered. Maybe he was playing with me.

"She's not here," he said.

"What?"

"If she was here," he said, "I would know. But I looked everywhere for you-" all over the city, on top of buildings, under bridges, in the park, very old restaurants where not even the regulars show up anymore; secret hangouts, alleyways, clubs, public school buildings, hideouts, cheap, scummy business that deal under the table in types of business the police probably want to know about; playgrounds, movie theaters, dead end streets, video stores; and last, for the sake of completion, hidden places where not even the most privileged eye can see- "and she still isn't there."

"That's not true," I said. "It couldn't be."

"I'm not sure." James said. "I'm not sure if she was ever here."

"People talk about her," I said.

"People talk about everything."

"Wherever I've been," I said, "she's been there. And if I want to go anywhere, she's been there too."

"That's what people say."

"I can find her."

"I can't help you."

"If you say so."

::::::::::::::::::::

The wolves

were there, in caves. Feral eyes glowed in the darkness. Tight constricted

haunches held them, claws in the

earth. Walking quickly, impatiently, they paced

from side to side. They had no reason to sit quietly.

Their

fur

was thickly

tangled .

::::::::::::::::::::

The streets were quiet tonight, to make me think. In windows, stagnancy shifting, beating silently against the walls. I'm not sure if I knew where I was going. I listened to myself: footsteps, rustles, breathing. Too much of my life seems to be a chronicle of breath. Under the light, I studied the absence of my shadow.

Stain,

the girders and

the archways, plotting screaming

grinding

for the furious

They

were coming. It wasn't that I heard them, or smelled them, or sensed with some gratuitous grasp of position, but they had an aura all their own, the kind that makes me contradict myself. Sometimes I wonder if I'm even worthy of poetry when at times like this I can't even get a grasp of sensation, that tingle at the back of the neck, glowing. I thought of running. At the moment I didn't feel like it. I felt too much like a tired half empty pseudo poet walking through a dark street at odds with very obvious very imminent danger: the kind that had teeth. I meant that to be a metaphor, to misrepresent (in representation), but here I am, getting absolutely confined to the real. Sometimes I frustrate myself.

::::::::::::::::::::

I slept for the night

in a house

made

out of snow. It was

very cold, which meant paradoxically, despite the warmth,

I couldn't touch

the walls. Not

only

would they collapse, destructively, but they were

my absolute coldness

here, impeding impassive to keep

the wind away. It wasn't

as though I believe in taking shelter, but I didn't

have any other choice.

The mountain

was evil, not as a matter of intent, but as