You probably understand. Or maybe you don't, after all. Either way, it is jumping around inside me and if I don't let it out soon all my carbonation will fizz up and run over the side of my glass and I don't want to waste all that sweetness.

I want to kiss you underwater.

I want that kiss to be the only thing keeping us alive. Down there we are foreigners, aliens. Grasping, I want to feel your flesh in stark contrast to the smooth wetness all around me, like a secret.

All that life where we cannot live. Exotic, forbidden, so lovely. I am sick with love.

Remember Gentlemen:
Bad behavior is to be rewarded, not rebuked.
The birds are too busy pecking at one another to build a proper prison system!
(And in the meantime, their legs remain open).
Enjoy yourselves!
(While the getting is good).

Even when I face problems miles high and fathoms deep
my books still make me cry.
Sometimes love in stories rings truer than any reality -
it is close to that I'll keep.

What does it matter if no one likes me
when worlds away a spider blinks its translucent eyes
and takes another step
on the branch.

So, you've read my poetry?
You've skimmed the lines and picked out words you think are pretty,
delicate, intelligent, or odd?
You understand me now, I see!
I'm yours to dissect, pick at, ****,
but never keep, of course not that.

Yes you've read my poetry,
but did you know I sometimes cross my l's as t's and often wish
to travel far and far alone.
Alone: myself and only me.
I'd adventure, danger-prone;
You would only slow me down.

So what if sometimes late at night I want to dance on balconies and feel your breath upon my ear?
That really doesn't matter
for I don't need you, and you don't want me,
even though you've read my poetry.

I spent four hours on my knees
scrubbing bathroom tiles
working though anxiety
shining and polishing and ignoring the heat of my burning bridges
and scalding the tips of my toes with bleach

and finally after all my toil the second floor bathroom was clean -
the blues and greens and chromes and golds clear and shining.

It seemed to me, as I fell on the couch in brief respite,
the grime had soaked through my fingers and into my bloodstream
and no matter how hard I scrubbed I couldn't polish my insides.

Yet I rose, to scrub once more.

The highway sign screams through my windshield.
Service parts and body til midnight!

What if I entered the body shop
waltzing in broken (down) splendor?
I am here for service
parts and body
til midnight.