I should have backed out
when instinct told me to
run;
run far,
run now.

When you closed eyes a little too long for a healthy man;
I know that nod only too well.

When the blame game you play spins to everyone but yourself

I should have backed out.
I should have backed out.

Now you Tangled my
Heart strings

Now you Mangled
My mind

When you surprised me with
Outrage over my feelings
On being an afterthought
Over your : addictions
Over your:  obsessions
Over : anything that could come before me

When you surprised me with
A Luke warm return

I should have backed out.
I should have backed out.

The door.

So now I’ll go.

Run
Run far
Run now..

Notes to a lover who once was

If I go over
what I did enough times
Laugh it out the way you did
As if my feelings were
in of themselves
a joke to be had

If I wish you away in my mind
Think of anything but your touch
The sweet one where
you rumble deep
Memories
Please fade away

You buried your face beneath your hands the first time
I walked into your place
Embarrassed by its state
as if it wasn’t a fact of your existence
Testimony to your state of pause

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!

Apologies in fast succession

OCD triplets Im familiar

I play back the hours that we share the same space

I smell the instability in the air.

Faint but present under cigarettes and old spice

Familiar like family

Eager to enter (me)

Beneath the banter (sweet and constant)

Slowly you pace the apartment searching for a plug you’d lost the year before.

Wasting time because it seems to be your comfort zone.

I lay back and patiently wait for you to do the same.

But you continue to delay.

Unsettled.

You were so gorgeous to me
So gorgeous that we nicknamed you “gorgeous George-ous”
Gorgeous George-ous with
The the bright blue eyes
I’d never experienced that type of stare
Whose name tattooed across back
Just in case the night took you somewhere unexpected
And you needed to be ... identified
Whose tag name I quietly new but was never discussed
As it should have been...
Unlike today.
Who made love to me abruptly on 44th street between 9th and 10th
Right there in the street with a nothing of a fence separating us from the passerby’s.
I didn’t care.
A flag waving quietly, high above our heads
Whose lips kissed me under the pillared circular structure on a midtown corner
Which was never to be forgotten
I linger each time I happen to pass it for just a second
To smile over that moment
Still after all these years.

Do you remember when you were a go-go dancer and I a dom;
That was a long time ago; ages really.

Or the time we were tossed out of the family home on a drunkin whim?
Jealous matriarchs angered by youthful hope;
She’d long ago lost.

But we came a long way.
Career chicks;
With eyes for a better life
We carried our families with a clean hustle,
With sweat,
Eating tears,
Shared with each other
Eating it.. for the kids.

I’m speechless without you
My fire
My confidant
My sister

That’s talent
Sniffing out drugs
Down two floors
Down deep in the recess
Of your drawer
Because it lay
Down deep in the recess
Of my mind
Down two floors
Stored for a slow
Calculated
Take down of your mind
Whilst it picks away
At my carefully
Orchestrated sobriety
Down deep
Layered over
With career
With kids
With paint
With healing sounds
Don’t come around here no more
But it do
But it do
Cause I’ve got a talent
for Sniffing out
The drudgery
For sniffing out
The dark side
Wars colliding in my mind
Cause the army I built is
Only as good as the fort I built in front of them.
And this nose. This nose..
I’ve got a talent.