For the first few months
you just want to **** yourself
and
everyone around you
in a machete mash-up
or a shotgun divorce.

I remember the girl
I started messing around with
after
the
thing.

She'd get on top of me
and reach down into my pants.

She'd do this
mechanical yanking real hard
until I started
getting friction burns.

Until I had to come
or else my **** might've singed off.

And when we ******,
she wanted everything hard
and she kissed real masculine:
aggressive
and her lips
braced against my teeth.

I hated her.

But what really ****** me up about her,
was that I only told her once about
Gnat,
and she didn't seem to hear me.

All the yanking and hard kissing,
she seemed there just to burn me down.

Not to destroy or anything malicious,
just that when she hopped in her car
and drove around in la-la land
I felt charred and empty.

Sometimes I'd call her over
to ****
and I'd just stare at her naked body,
closing my eyes
picturing gnat.

It never worked.

I always came hard
and it burned.

Eventually,
I stopped calling her.

Maybe she's dead or something.

I don't know,
at that time
she was just that inanimate to me.

I barely remember what she looked like,
I spent so much time
trying to super-impose.

Christmas
makes you realize
how lonely
and pointless
you are.

Everyone's at Jared's,
laughing with the overly made up
thirty-ish
forty-five year old
behind the counter.

Making jokes about
how
the bride-to-be
"lets him get away
with certain things,
but he knows who's boss."

While the groom-to-be stands beside her demurely
as she flexes that nice glinting rock.

"So when's the wedding?"


Or seeing people
going to Micheal's
for some string and
beads, and wood-carved letters,
to make a homemade
necklace
for her,
because commercialism
ruins love.

Real love comes from the heart
and necklaces made out of heartfelt twine
glistening with green and red beads
that enclose her name
in wood-carved letters
that have probably been chewed on
by a progressive four year old.



I think it's the whole idea
of togetherness.

This feeling of closeness brought on by the cold.

The need to be warm and vitalized,
while realizing
that you are rubbing your own shoulders.

you are shuddering against your own pillow.

you are curled up inside your own covers.

you simply are

and there is no one else around
to affirm
with love
and ***
and ingenuity
that
you are.

Sometimes
I check up on her.

(I believed it to be
Some masochism
deep within
me.)

Over facebook.

We're no longer facebook friends,
but I gather snapshots
of her life
through her profile pic.

I
now
like to think of it
as a healthy breakup.

A way of communicating
while not communicating.

But before it was horrible;
before I'd get depressed
just seeing her hair.

He is wearing a tux
and holds her around the waist.

Her purple dress is ruffled
at the hips and where
her tiny ******* nip outward.

Their eyes are closed full
of something that only they could explain
between each other.

Lips are smushed,
her very red,
red giant red,
lips are softened against his.

He is taller than her,
but not by much.

And they seem happy
at whatever wedding,
gala,
or whatever Bourgeoisie **** they were doing.

And
before now,
I probably would've raided my stash of Wild Turkey;
cried in my room for a few days;
skipped meals.

But now,
I feel content.

Happy.

Not so alone
and wishful.

I don't miss her anymore, or love her for that matter. And I'm happy that she has found someone to begin that journey all over again with.

This is how we atone for things.

A ritual
of constant pain
ending
in
contentment.

Your first ****
is very important.

If you don't get that first **** out of your ***
and mess up the good routine you've got going
then you're headed for trouble:

wake up.
scratch *****.
feel *****.
feel ****.
smack stomach(listen for the sound of new fat deposits)
burp.
wheez.
get up.
go to bathroom.
look in mirror.
hate self for not exercising.
brush teeth.
begin formulating exercise plan.
****.
feel 10 pounds lighter and label self
idiot
for talking about diet in the first place.

If the **** is not taken
between brushing your teeth
and breakfast,
your whole morning
is ******.

This is how it goes
without the ****.
First:
you forget to put on enough deodorant.
no biggie.
but you sweat a lot.
that extra cake-clod of speedstick actually does help.

Second:
on the way out the door
you forget your ipad.
no biggie.
except it had those quarterly numbers
for your sector's growth on it.

Colon gurgles
as you jingle the keys
down the stairs.

Third:
You forget your wallet
on the counter
in the kitchen.

Your ipad's still on the bedside table.

Colon gurgles.

You run back up the stairs,
grab the wallet,
give your apartment the quick once-over,
steadying on that $300 couch you bought in college
thinking you have everything.

Now you're going to be
five minutes late.

Should've taken the ****,
but you don't realize that now.

Fourth:
You get to work
five minutes late.
Everyone's in the meeting room
already,
nobody says anything
but mustache-face
aka
El Jefe
gives you the look.

El Jefe asks for your quarterly numbers
as soon as you settle into your seat.

Colon whistles.

"Was there any sizable growth,
do you think there are areas
we could devote more time and energy
too, in favor of others?"

You don't have your ipad
in your computer bag
with all those numbers on it.

People have been getting laid off lately.
"It's just the economy."

But really
"it's who doesn't **** up."

Colon screams.

This is how your morning got ****** up:

Usually when you take your ****,
you go back to sink in front of the mirror
to wash your hands.

After hands are washed and dried,
you go under the sink
and pull out the speedstick.

You put on a healthy dose.

Not only because you sweat
a lot,
but because you think the ****-smell
will follow you like a pervert.

After the speedstick,
you usually go into the bedroom,
because while in the mirror;
staring at the excess fat;
thinking about how good you look,
lighter;
the thought pops in your head,
"don't forget the ipad."

You don't know where it comes from,
but it comes.

Since you take the ipad to work
everyday
you count on having this thought
everyday.

You look on the bedside table
and there it is.

Quiet, black and glassy on its surface.
So placid like a lake contained within
the reaches of a pool.

No monsters.
No forgetfulness.
Just routine.

You should've taken the ****.

Whenever I come home,
I think about Ellie.

There's a gym
right beside the community pool.

The gym is small.
The pool is glassy.

I think about us
bumping each other
in that unbalancing
green pool slime,

*******
in the most ugly
and lame way
in the purple darkness.

While I run on the treadmill,
I think about
how young
and useless we were.

The best buzz
is that one singular moment
right after the first forty,
when you've got a Marlboro
hanging with its fingernails
to your bottom lip.

And you're so lazy
and warm
that you push the smoke out
without lifting a finger.

One time Heck found me in a bar bathroom, lying unconscious.

He carried me home,
even as he stumbled
under his own weight.