first date conversation: research
on lemurs and taxis without floors
because the city is too poor
for upscale renovation

and we exchange backgrounds and
drug stories and some-day-soon
kind of musings

/a southern peach and a sour
stiletto; the man in corner singing
slowly Nobody's Child/

and eventually we write our names in chalk
on the ceiling (and the wall because
I'm tired of places appearing as if I'd
never been there at all)

and later still we write our names in heat
against the cloudy window (twice
because the steam keeps swallowing up
our evidence of existence)

but it's easy to write again and
again because our names are the same
and I'm starting to believe in this idea
of genuine permanence

I wish I was one for brevity,
but there are so many words that sit
unheard in my head because I spend far
too many nights alone in this bed.

I need a bag to punch, or a cup
to chuck, eh maybe a
wall to dent, or a man to ****;

I need something that isn't you -
I need it like these raw emotions need
to hold on a moment so that I may
control them, fold them neatly
into a beautiful poem,

but they resist, and you're still missed,
and it ***** me up inside;
what we had wasn't finished
in my mind, and it ***** me up inside..

there are sparks inside
my chest, my god;

today, I passed two mugs
atop the pavement,
and I wished so badly
for isolation
so that I could break them;

from time to time, I feel explosions
of emotion, and I want to fling
my rage against the wall - purple
hate specks on white paint;

but I can't afford true destruction,
so I tense, and flinch, and decide
it's best to spill my pain electronically
in vast, ambiguous space

I'm told the only way grow
over you, is to peel apart every memory;
I must reach down my choked-up
throat, and feel around for you inside
my broken body - find the figments
of my bitter fantasies and watch them over
and over

[the night we walked home
at 3am and shouted lyrics from Snow
Patrol at the scarecrows in the
graveyard/ the night we ******
three consecutive
times/ the night I decided
I would let myself fall]

until I suffocate and hate you,
all the same; the best-tested remedy
is to become a practicing
******* - a professional
pain analyst,

and so I'll gag myself
cleansing my body from your
presence, I'll pour my liver out
if only to pry apart the
bargains;
I will ruin every black and white
filmstrip if only to say
goodbye
for the last time

I foolishly thought
recovery
was the point past which
I no longer reached
for Kleenex, yet it seems
you still follow me
in the back of my throat
causing me to choke
from time to
time, and occasionally
I spit you up [the bile that you are],
and I want so much
to be free from you,
but in my moments
of weakness,
I swallow you up -
whole again - I know no
different, you are the beginning
and the end.

Say you and I go home tonight,
what details will you share?

Do you brush your teeth
in the shower, or
sleep in underwear?

Do you study well with music,
or prefer the silence
of a hallowed and lonely library?

Do you forget your dreams
while waking, or do they wake you
and leave you reeling?

Do you ache for someone
you can't replace, or have you gone numb
from all these shallow dates?

*You know it pays to engage in
genuine conversation, so tell me,
are you willing take off
more than the clothes you came in?