So I'm cleaning up the dishes
From our dinner,
If you could call it that-
It was really just microwaved food,
Packaged carcinogenic frozen death.

And you storm into the kitchen,
Raving about something,
And you're bleeding,
And I'm screaming.

And I wake up on the couch
And realize that was never there
And you're sleeping next to me,
Unharmed.

I wake up with this pain in my head
One like you wouldn't believe.

I run water for the coffeepot
And I look in the other room
And you're passed out
And I just need to get away from here
I want to pack my old duffel
And get in the old Forester
And go back to him:
With his sanity and his steady job and his mossy eyes

And you get up
And amble in beside me
Wrap your arms around my neck
Kiss me with such disappointing abandon
And you could have knocked me over with a feather.

And I go upstairs,
Look in the mirror,
Cry tears of defeat, and put away my bags.
I hear you singing from the bottom of the stairs:
Hi ****** dee dee,
God ****!
The pirate's life for *me!

We're hedonists.
We lay here on this couch
All day and most of the night.

It's old, older than you and older than me
And it's got this awful floral-print cover
That's stained with coffee and wine and cigarette burns
And love and angst and grief.

And we put what we want in our bodies
And they grow flabby and pale
And our love never had a chance
So why won't it die?

And when I was too drunk to stand up anymore
You used to carry me up the stairs
To our big old bed with ratty sheets and mismatched pillows.
Tonight we stay on the couch;
We're both high on this cheap horrible ****.
I think it's laced with something, something bad.
And you won't carry me up the stairs
Because there's music on the ceiling
And it's got skinny black legs.

You were made for this life, my rough and rotten.
I could have been anything.
And you're a self-proclaimed anarchist.
I know you're nothing but a sloth.
But I love you more than words can say
And we lay here on the couch all night
And **** three times
And you tell me it doesn't get any better than this.

My dearest rough & rotten,
Are so full
So red
So very sweet.

Their warmth and yours
Is coursing through my veins
And the way you breathe
Is enough to knock me down.

But it doesn't need to;
I'm already here
Under your little scrappy form
Sinewy and poised, brimming with athleticism, masculinity.

This can't be right;
But I wouldn't want to live without this,
Without your hands,
Your pulse,
Your tongue,
Your Lips.

You recline, sublimely.

Kiss me hard.
Pull me down onto you,
Your soul and mine overflowing with desire
and the wanting comes in waves

And our heavy hot breathing steams up the glass and my mind.

You stand there
Making eyes at me
And I playfully choose to ignore you.

You cross your elbow through mine
And I look in the other direction, avoiding your gaze.

So your hand,
Blooms of the vine of creeping wisteria that is your arm-
Long, Resilient,
Slides around my hips,
Pulls me in nearer to your familiar form,
and takes root there.