We threw a mattress
in the back of my car.
Some clothes.
Some food.

I packed eight books.
He packed a skateboard.

We drove along
the freeway
behind a car
the same as my mother's.

I thought about when she left
and all the tears I know she cried
driving away,
northward bound.

She drove for five days.
That's a lot of tears
and math
I can't do.

The driver had the same tanned skin
my mother has now,
and sun-bleached caramel hair
I imagine she would have too
had she not preferred
the taste of licorice.

I've been reading
the subtle art
of not giving a ****
and too many a-*****
I've given
about her leaving.

Let me record
the last **** given
in poetry
and move on.

So my love and I
drove on,
together.

We're best together.

My father always told my sister and I
not to bite the hand that feeds.
But I look down at my hands
and see scars where my own teeth
have drawn blood.

hap*
/hap/

noun
1. luck; fortune

verb
1. come about by chance

And it hit me,
by happenstance,
that perhaps,
per-chance
I'd been
wrong.

Wrong in believing
a happiness
was owed
to people
and would
flow to me
not by happenstance
but by choice.

By choice
and by choosing
the right path.
But the path
of choice
and of choosing
the one
that is right
is a very wrong
and anxious
path
indeed.

And indeed
I am
the anxious type
from years
of fears
that by
trusting choice
over happenstance
I'd choose
wrong.

But I didn't
choose wrong.
Nor did I
choose right.
I chose
not to choose
at all.

I'm also
the sad type.
And now
I worry
that by
definition of
hap
and thus
of happiness
I'm not sad
by happenstance
but of
choice.

I envy her.
I'd write that
she changes lovers
as often as her clothes,
but I've seen her
hold on to clothes
much longer.

I envy her.
She knows love
straight out of
a Vogue editorial.
The kind where models
wear only jeans
and ****** each other
with their polished,
photoshopped beauty
and ****** eyes.

Then you see
the same models
somewhere else,
seducing some other model,
and wonder
how their brains
can keep up
the oxytocin
demand.

I envy her.

My lover and I,
we're full of holes,
like my father's
light blue Levi's
from the eighties.

I don't envy her.
We're full of holes,
my love and I,
but full of patches
because a good pair of jeans
are worth mending
when they fit you
like a glove.

We sat
on the edge
of the kitchen bench,
like most evenings
and shared stories
from our days.

My love,
his eyes
a mirror
for his weary mind.

It's only Monday
he says
watching
Kenny dance
inside a glass.

**** Kenny.
He's no good.

Why are you so sad?
he asks.
I smile and say
because I'm me!
and throw my arms to the sky
like my own personal curtain call.

He sips from his glass,
no longer dancing
and replies
that's a much simpler answer.

I leap from the bench
and embrace him,
cradle his head
to my cold
and bony
shoulder.

I feel closest to him
in moments,
when he finally
allows me
to see
him
c r a c k

He told me once
that my sadness makes me selfish.
Well I think his lack of sadness
makes him so.

I imagine
how much closer
we could be.

Just him and I,
without his stupid,
******* facade.

Break!
You *******,
break!
Crumble into a hundred
tiny pieces.

Learn how
you can be more beautiful
for being broken.
Don't you think I'm beautiful?
Baby,
I'm a mosaic,
a ******* art form.

Kintsukuroi.

I'll be nothing but gold
one day.

Half way up the hills
and eclectic group gather
at a narrow bar.

Leather jackets
occupy seats
by the door.

We sit
for a cigarette length of time
(cigarette length of time =
   1 x 10 minutes
            + ≥ 10 minutes before
                   and/or after cigarette)
and walk
the dimly lit corridor
to the bar.

We sit
at a table for two
against a wall.

The band plays fiercely.
I've seen them before.

Their moxie
always brings
a rowdy crowd.

Behind them
apple crates
cling to the wall,
housing quirky decor.
Books, globes and vintage cameras.

A projector casts
lollipop swirls
and a singing silhouette.

Drink specials:
tequila mockingbird

I spoke to a Serbian girl I know.
She always wears glitter
and hazy eyes.
The more questions
I ask her
the longer I can listen
to her accent.

We spoke about the age old
nature vs nurture enigma,
and the life long impact
of a child's first six years.

She asked me
about my art.

It seems
that's all anyone
knows me for.

Outside, again, we sit.
For 5 x cigarette length of time.

Around me
people talk...
                 and talk.....
                               talk....
                                       ta...
                                             l...
                                                 k.

I'm sober.
Too **** sober.

My daydreams are broken
by a man.
He's bubbly and smiles a lot.
I like bubbly, smiley strangers.

We exchange stories
of our current lives.
He's a graphic designer,
and tells me
I should merge my art
and writing
into film,
and gifts me a flashlight.

I like quirky, bubbly, smiley strangers.

I'm left to retreat
back into my own thoughts.
It's less lonely in there.

I sort through memories,
recite lyrics,
observe the people around me
and watch them closely.
Their body language,
the way they bring
their glass to their mouth
and blow their smoke.

People interest me most
doing nothing in particular.

But I miss something,
and I can't quite pinpoint what.

I'm sober.
             Too.
                 ****.
                         Sober.