Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness

The third time I saw him, I thought this must be a joke. In line at Cafe Pergolasi, I shake my head and almost laugh. He says "what are you following me?" Another time to stand there, to not feel threatened, however much my heart beat going fast. There I stood, him no longer looming so much, but just but then, then as I went back to the *gden and her Mr. Bronk, it dawned on me. "wait a second, was that MY shirt?" And going BACK to him, "Hey is that my Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness shirt?" "Yeah, I told you I had it and you said you'd get it when you got back [from Italy]. I get compliments on it all the time!" He rubs in. I am breathless and looking at this incomprehensible picture. MY Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness shirt 1997, when the Smashing Pumpkins came out with that Album, when they smashed the scene and the brink of my High School Years and everday was an undercover soliloquey to Billy Corgan and that sweeping album. I was 15. And I was 16, 17. I was 18, 19, when I wore that shirt. wearing it in all times, these Big times, these useless times and everyday times, but it was mine. I'm tripping there in Cafe Pergolesi seeing this guy who once wasloaded, now listless almost, now vacant. And he's wearing this shirt of mine with infinite memories, my whole high school years pouring out from this shirt. LIke a sea around this shirt, them washing up on the shore. (of him?) no, he was vacant there, listless there. Not belonging of my shirt.,
I have been thinking about the way we are clothed. Am I faking myself to believe that he wears me? that he wears some eternal piece of me? Well on that day I saw that he did not wear me, as much as he had my shirt with the best times ever I could see it had nothing to do with him, that he was random in it. that he could not participate. And how relieving to feel the throngs of those times wash up at me, and to know that he could not touch them, he could not touch those innoncent blooming days of my late 90s. And how much also then wishing that he does not stain all these days of consequence that did give him, and have given him since in the haunting, the haunting, the sunken downhearted. I am so tired so tired of carrying this. at all.,
This shirt, the Melancholy I loved to summon as I listened to the Pumpkins "get" the waning pain. the constant. the fertileness of it and I would lie there plush with that good ache, and the nudge of so much more to come, so much turning in my life of great chances and knowing that I would be so many persons of me and wear and render with all kinds of aches and longings and basement creations. And it pleased me then that I would have so many aches to find. And I would have so many long nights, in th way track 1 spills from the Infinite Sadness Album, long nights without cover or ceiling. I felt so big so big with the night and even me in my surburban neighborhood marked untouchable especially in track 2. OK, here is a messy little unfancy poem I wrote about it:

Wearing My Melancholy and Infinite Sadness

He was wearing my Melancholy and Infinite Sadness from 1997,
My shirt hung on him like a mast,
All my ripe memories sail by
of all my teenage inklings and nights brimming,
my long hair reaching,
the mischief,
and the nights of nowhere.

No, he wasn't wearing my Beforeness.
It had no resolve upon his vacant figure.
I stood there now seeing
my Beforeness spill out like lacquer.

My first boyfriend in his car listening
to "Tonight, Tonight" and going home.
The orchestra in Track 1 swelling:
The Civic Center. Duck Pond. Waiting in
the traffic jam to get out having just seen Billy.
Smashing Pumpkins: the music
so massive my fist closed to not lose it.
Or sitting with Richard and talking however I want to be,
or Going to Kaveh's house
with my big and hard heart.
And all times uneventful, and all times mine.

My beforeness is full of nowheres and surburbia,
It's full of the loser boyfriends
and their "I'm breaking up with you"
and losing myself in it
like the bottom of a soggy lunchbag given-up.
My Beforeness is hailing Rage Against the Machine
and trying to be harcore and chasing friends who didn't call me back.
And call girls "Girl!" at school even when they didn't like me,
like I could put up my homey-tent regardless.

My Beforeness has The Northgate Mall and bold girls around me
and being bright no matter what and
rushing to Bolinas at midnight to go in the Ocean.
It's making Daryoush dance with me to Cranberries
and knowing that he liked me.
It's liking the boys even after they dumped me
and stressing out over History Class.

But my Before is mine.
My before is mine. My Before had my
friends smoking Pot before it was my time. And
loving my sister a lot.
And holding my grandma's hand.

But my before can float.
My before is not lost on him,
it doesn't know him.
My before sails by
everybody in the room.

My before is where went Sarah,
My before no longer stores soreness,
it floats wide.
it sits there uncompromised.
It's not even bummed, and I can't even beckon it.

My beforeness is a sadness that can no longer grow.
It has no binds
He opened the blinds
to a light that escapes him,
a light of my melancholy infinite.
He can't fan.
so much mine, like leggings they are mine
The left place he can't go groping.
My infinite me.
uncaptivating with seam.