solitude marks the height of my contentment
no agreements to make
I don't have to see faces
nods smiles masked aggression
I don't have to act
I don't have to trade facade for facade
with my peers
do I even have peers?

at night, I feel a stillness
so deep, so harsh, so honest
I don't have to live this lie
explain why I'm fine
why everything is fine
because, it's not
nothing's fine

I am a million clashing universes
filled with endless dying stars
and I reach out
to the other universes
and shrink back
  back
          and at night
I fill the stillness
  the stars collapsing
every synapse bending
toward destruction

no want
               no need
                             no crying out for more

at night there is no other
no one to say my name falsely
and when I sleep
the ocean of my subconscious
carries me to sleeping cures
takes me away for years
to great expanses of colorful
living worlds
where I feel
where my emotions are tangible
solid
and
       they keep me company for
a millennia
         I wake to this doll world
where a friend asks
how are you doing
and she's doing it out of obligation
                                                and there's no color
and I have no emotion
and I feel nothing

Life is the waiting room for the exploration of that dream world

and every night
I taste it
I touch it
I breathe in its vibrance
and the only want
is to never wake
to this grey world
to never have to answer

"fine"

again

in the desert
a spider traps a mouse
a woman cries
I feel her hot tears
on my head
they drip drip drip
I look out over my balcony
wondering, why?
what is the point?
a man lives alone with his goldfish
he hasn't seen a woman naked in years
he reads a novel and laughs to himself
I hear his laughter
It crowds my mind
I feel its hands and elbows poke my sides
I walk into work
I walk out
somewhere downtown,
a teenager is trying marijuana for the first time
I feel the warmth
the guilt
I feel endless

the world carries on outside my apartment
fighting
drinking
laughing
sleeping
a girl finds a flower
a man drives to work
a woman eats some green beans
a soldier wonders why he signed up
for this
a fat law maker *******
and me
I sit
and think
sometimes, cry
don't know what else to do
summer breathes hot air down my neck
and somewhere a baby is born
it is cold there
and her father is dead

It's Thursday
If it were Wednesday
It would be the same
again, you are not here
So,
     I think to call someone else
and have regrettable ***
and forget you for a night
but I don't
I'm tired of it
I'll be alone
So,
I think I'll sit by myself
drink
    and talk to the gods
they don't exist
but they are nearer than you

a man runs down the road
exercise brings comfort
but who needs comfort
when you have
beer
cigarettes
and a summer afternoon

It's hard to meet new people
they're so foreign
they do things like wear hats
and play baseball
they listen to bad music
they like crossword puzzles
I don't like to hear them talk
but
      at night
when I get very cold
and sometimes it hurts to breathe
I'd like one of them next to me
or I'd like to hear them talk
anything to make me warm again
I can't have it all
but sometimes
I want it.

It is late,
and the beer drips down my throat
                                                          ­   goes to my head
meets the silence
            tomorrow is too hard to think about
                                                           ­           but tonight
my youth dances with the alcohol
                                                         ­  they aren't good dancers
but no one is watching
and tomorrow is late