I have this ache in my back, you see
and before I thought it was just bad posture
so I stood and sit up straight and held my head high.

But then the pain never receded,
I thought it mimics the curve of your smile,
the arches of your hands,
the ridges of your palms.

That's when I realized

I was falling for you
and it was not you
or my posture that's
affecting my back,

it was wings growing
to stop the fall.

And I took the flight.

this is not a poem
          
          

                       *just a mere

image
consisting of

                                         straight lines
and curves

die bäume sind frisch
der See ist salzig und kühl
Deutschland macht Spaß, ja?

"Stay for just a while," I say, "just for tonight, we can make this work if you give me a chance."
He sits there quietly looking down at his hands, he glances at the watch I gave him for his birthday
"Okay, fine," he manages
I reach across the table to grab his hands, he reluctantly lets me in
Tomorrow I know he will leave with the taste of coffee that was not sweet enough branded on his tongue
I did not put enough sugar to make him want to stay here
Tomorrow he will walk out as if he never knew me, as if I were a stranger he glanced at on the street
But for now, I curl up in his arms and kiss his neck just before he falls asleep
"We could make this work," I mumble, "I swear we could."
I want to stay in the crevice between his chest and arm forever
He drifts to sleep and slowly I am fatigued but refuse to rest
I do not want to waste any of the time I have the chance to look at you
Tomorrow he will pack his bags and say goodbye
It will be as if we never shared a thing together
The late night phone calls of you telling me how when you got home late, your parents were asleep
The lingering of our lips as our breath stood hot and still in the space between us
"I have to go now," he will say, "please try to understand."?and I will try to understand but I just can't
The light beaming in from the kitchen window has never looked so grim
I try to think of a way to convince him that the weather is too bad to walk outside
But it isn't, it's beautiful out and he has every reason to leave me
I thought that if I told him I missed him, that I wanted this one more time
That everything would turn around and that he would say he still loved me
He shuts the door behind him and I have never felt it more
That he doesn't

It was four o'clock in the morning. Robert wondered why his name was Robert. He decided to get rid of the "Bert" because it was the name of a Sesame Street character or the name of a ******* in Tempe, Arizona. Then again, he thought, "Hey, just Rob makes me sound like I change tires for a living or that I work out at a gym that discriminates fat people and blacks." Rob or Robert took a second to evaluate his last thought and if thinking "and blacks" made him a racist person.

Robert sat on a bench and wondered if the woman beside him was expecting Forest Gump-esque wisdom.

Robert thought of a friend he had in grade eight, named Alexander. He thought of how Alexander had a glass eye. Robert wondered how Alexander had a glass eye but could not remember or did not know why Alexander had a glass eye. Robert, then, concluded that sometimes he will not know something and how that is okay because most people don't know anything--it's a collection of approximates that stay in our heads, he thought. Robert asked himself if his last thought made him intelligent or dumb and pretentious. Robert decided that he did not know. How meta, he thought. Robert, then, decided to stop using the word "meta" so much, because it made him feel like a professor with bitterness and something to prove.

Robert watched his sister struggle with an eating disorder. She was in a hospital bed, with an IV in her arm. Robert did not know if he would struggle with anything as hard as his sister struggled with anorexia. Robert, then, had intense but fleeting anger at every person that bragged about being anorexic or made it seem cool.

Robert sat on his toilet and wondered what his true identity was and what his true nature was. He wondered what was inherent and what was synthetic. Robert, then, wondered if a synthetic personality was inherent. Robert asked himself if he was a good person. He wasn't sure if sitting on the toilet, in his grandmother's house, and ******* to interracial ebony teen ****, on his iPhone, made him a good person or not. His concerns soon past, though, as soon as Lauren started to **** the pizza guy's white ****.

Robert walked down the street and was contemplating some of the issues that plagued his ****-infested mind, while he was on the toilet. Robert saw a girl running from a guy. Robert asked himself if he was a hero or inherently good. Robert, then, concluded that he was inherently a coward, since he did nothing and hoped that somebody else would save her.

Robert didn't meet a girl and knew that no one would write prose about his meeting a girl and their mutual love for one another. Robert was eating a steak sub, while thinking this.

Robert returned to the hospital, to pick up his sister. On the way home, his sister talked about how attractive her nurse was. Robert asked, "What did he look like?" His sister, then, said, "It wasn't a he. My nurse was a girl." Robert was okay with his sister being attracted to girls, but hoped that she didn't get more than him or more attractive girls than him, because, for some reason, that would make him feel insecure. Robert decided to stop eating so many steak subs and to work out. Robert asked his sister if she wanted to get steak subs. She said, "sure".

Robert was working out in his basement. He heard the sound of retching, upstairs. Robert followed the sound of the vomiting and opened a bathroom door. He saw his sister stick her finger down her throat. He said to his sister, "That isn't anorexia." His sister said, "I know. There's a lot you don't know about me." Robert said, "I'm sorry."