The evenings are grey and overcast
I walk home after work
Climb the steep
Dank stairs
Into my apartment.
I push the door open
And sigh
But it is not a breath I exhale
I say your name
And it echoes in my brain
As I drop the keys on the
Kitchen table
Your face is blurry in my mind's memory
Aside of your green eyes
Which are all at once
Sharp as steel knives and
Aching with hope

What were you more
Than a love I was bound for?

I found a way to make it painless, to make god good, to make myself good, to make myself god—me—Joshua Jerome Hutton, sound familiar?  

God I hope so.

I found a way to make it painless in the checkout line, while the bleary-eyed maidens of South Moore, one in front, one behind, talk 3 a.m. rallies and resurrections right through me.

I found a way to make it painless at the eternal stoplight, watching the eternal Vietnam veteran in eternal rags holding eternal cardboard, summoning crumpled bills from anyone other than me.

I found a way to make it painless during the photo shoot, a way to place my chin so thoughtfully in my hand, a way to look into the middle-distance, a way to imply self-deprecation, a way to find near perfection—only under ample light, of course.

I found a way to make it painless in the soup queue, amongst my fellow unshaven, shamed naked, shamed to the bone, shamed pure, shamed to one flybuzz drive: I must consume.

I found a way to make it painless, to make it to the center of the white space, to suspend, inking out the worst parts of me, an all caps ATTRACTION, impossible to pinpoint, all for the review of books and the cabal of the slowed-down and insane still reading the review of books.

I found a way to make it painless by never breaking eye contact nor speaking a word as you talk yourself deeper into what you hate about yourself, and I stir my drink with a black cocktail straw, and I clear my throat, and I hahaha to myself, and I say these little issues just seem like problems. Just wait. You just wait.

I found a way to make it painless, to eek out of my own borderlines, to meld with the air and chemtrail across the sky, to observe from a holy distance the tightrope walker, the controlled demolition, the desperate young men lagging five feet behind the elusive loves of their lives, firing every clever phrase, hoping for one to land, to glean one little pause, a moment to catch up, and here, I must admit, it gives me great relief to be this removed, this far gone, this far god.

You can rate me,
You can bait me,
You can freight me,
You can strait me,
Simulate me,
Even better
Drop a roofie,
Game a debtor.
You're so groovy, misbehaving,
Misbehaving,
Give it to me,
Trouble waiting,
Fascinating,
Always mating,
You can wake me,
You can slave me,
You can grade me,
You can shave me,
Integrate me,
I pulsating
A new navy,
All the skimmings,
Underpinning
Jehovah's witness,
Keep on stalking,
Better fitness,
Keep on shocking,
Shell is thinning,
Gettin' gotten,
Rot 'n' reeling.

Don't touch my bikini.
Better smile when you see me,
You can stare
That's a freebie.
Don't touch my bikini.
Looking is free,
But touching's gonna cost you
Something.

Smooth and lanky,
Hanky panky,
Got no treat or
New York Yankee,
Super leader,
Count to seven,
Go to Paris,
Break the leaven,
Roger Maris,
Bleed the Czar,
Shooting star,
You're so levy,
You're so sunny,
Getting ready,
Here's the money,
Socking heady,
Making honey,
Toasting herons,
That's not funny,
Waiter Betty,
Way too ****,
You're so on it,
You're so honest,
You can fool me,
You remold me,
All the preachers never told me,
Heavy breathing
Punting reason,
Welcome season.

Don't touch my graffiti.
Smile if you dare,
Oily oinkers everywhere.
Keep watching, you graffiti.
Next time you'll learn
That touching's gonna cost you
Something.

Glancing around that neverplace, the airplane cabin,
indulging that edge-of-time feeling,
your head resting on the cool window,
you see her.
She rolls a piano onto the tarmac.
You wait to be bused to the takeoff starting line.
She's fuzzy in the distance, a soft shape getting softer,
in a blue hoodie and blue jeans, perhaps barefoot.
No one stops her.
You feel like someone should.
A dry swift wind beats across the flats.
She stops pushing, the piano in a suitable place.
A man in an orange vest drags a row of stairs behind the piano.
She sits on the third step, lifts the fall board.
You cannot see her hands. She's playing now.
A noisy collective boredom surrounds the cabin.
And yet this. Just outside.
From your vantage, it's not music, nor is it spectacle.
It's suppressed beauty, a dimmed surprise,
and your hands ache and you long for the wind,
for her bright song, for a brief dance
beyond this inconsiderable window.

I want to be the reason
Why you never give up.

I want you to glance
Over to your side when you're
Tired, defeated, forgotten, forlorn;
Uninspired, depleted, rotten, and torn
And see me there and hear me say:

"Don't you dare."

and those words would send you wild and running and driven into your dreams--

Only to find me there again.

I am a signed document
a fit of freedom written in last minute ink
My hair the lustrous curls of knowing
what it’s like to unwind a little.

My breath is the mist of the Baltic Sea, rising to meet the heat
of an argument, a moment, a feeling.
I light a fire with my pen.

I hide my tired eyes, clenched jaw
and write with a tight grip.
Voices echo through the forest,
Révolution ! Commencer la revolution !
Trees fall to thunder.

Self-doubt sinks to the bottom of my sea
like a shipwreck. My armies trench through fields
mowed in circles
the rings moving out like zen,
and I practice tai chi in the middle of battle
finding peace at last.

Now I live a lifetime of summer.

Back to counting the hours
until I get to go home.
Back to awkward encounters
with strangers I know.
Back to wearing my earphones
in tense public spaces.
Back to standing alone
in a sea of the faceless.

Back to socially inept,
standing in corners,
intense introversion
and wishing it was over.

Back to hiding my flaws,
my quirks and my oddities--
not talking too much
because I say all the wrong things.

It's back to the grind,
and I'll muddle through
because at least when it's over
I'll be home with you.