A man sits diagonally in front of me
to my left in the diner
Over his shoulder, I see
he’s navigating Facebook
on a cheap laptop
Behind him, I’m writing this poem
Every 13 seconds a notification rings
He has a Facebook message
The notifications are messages from a woman
She types heart shapes in place of words
It is the standard online flirtation
that has replaced real relationships
He is quite popular
as he eats toast with purple jelly
and sits alone

People once came to diners
to chain smoke cigarettes
and drink pots of coffee
and think
and talk
and read poetry
We didn’t have much
but we had each other
Now we’re individuals
who sit in silence
alone

Some of us get chat notifications
Some of us write poems
All of us still get the coffee
and the toast
with purple jelly

Bean bag wasted dreams,
Legs on your lap,
Making out with a bottle of jack,
My bestfriend is on crack,
Cause life is wack,
I like the awkward faces you make,
& the way you always lick your lips,
After the first sip.
I like the human species,
And how were convinced you can fight with your eyes closed and still win.
Hawks always fly by me, with sad eyes,
They know something about me, that I'll never know. You said, " man I could sleep on you"
Butterfly kisses on bridges of my nose.
Drunk expierences.

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
i won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
i won't blame you,
instead
i will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of
me,
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no
knife. the knife is
mine and i won't use it
yet.

Wake to the warm.

Wake to memories
of desire.

Sleepy otters stretch.

Birds awake singing questions.

She sighs and sips,
the day before her.

He wonders at her wonder;
so the otters, so the birds.

What are those
memories of desire?

And who is this
bright promise
that sighs and sips,

waking to the warm.

One day, he will know.
  ~mce

Just when I thought I've
written you out completely,
scratched your memory off the edges of my bones,
wrung the imprint of your lips from mine,
wretched out every word you ever poured into me,
tore your image from the hippocampus of my brain,
Just when I thought I had said
all there is to say about you,
about us,
about this,
Just when I think I have
finally left it all behind,
You come back to me.

In my dreams
in my late nights
in the bottle of wine I force myself to finish
in the pack of cigarettes I don't even like smoking
in my wandering mind
in the short seconds between each day
in all of my writing,
Your name is always the first thing to be marked down.

Lover, I can't forget
I am still spilling your tongue
from my mouth
You seep through my pores on hot days,
the freckles on my face remind me
of how you once found constellations in them,
you built galaxies in my eyelids,
lover,
the cleansing is only just beginning.

I am too full on our history
There is no empty when it comes to us
I will be forever ridding
myself of your contents
I thought the tidal wave of
still missing had passed
but here I am
drowning again.

Doggy paddling to stay afloat,
I have never been very good
at swimming. I am still
hanging on to the deflated
life raft that is your hand,
you let go of mine a long time ago,
it's about time I do the same.