You, my rough and rotten,
Are like coffee.
Coffee with skim milk in it, and sugar.

The anticipation is the best, the expected effects of your touch.
Then the heat. Too much.
After you're gone,
I wish you'd never been here. Such a sour aftertaste!

But later,
I stare into the bottom of my empty mug
Stained with the end of the morning's dregs
And look at my empty arms
And feel cold.

When the kettle screams,
I shrug.
Why *not?

Brings a feeling of helplessness
And all of the leftover Christmas cookies
Are not satisfying but cloying.

Our bovine grazing leaves the kitchen ravaged
And our stomachs are overfull
But still we eat,
Finding ourselves only hungrier.

Our minds, our senses, need refreshment
And our desperate starving spirits moan ceaselessly.

Our skin is pallid
And desiccated by the artificial heat.
The sun hasn't shone for days.

To where may we escape?

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.

You and I knew it wasn't right.

But once the idea had been discussed,
It would not leave our minds.

We opened the door
And it wouldn't close again.

Afterwards, you pushed it shut with all your weight,
Sweating and out of breath.

We'd won,
But barely.

And the dust from that room
Hung in our air
And the light filtered through it,
Making it painfully visible,
Interminably present.

Can we open the window and let it out into the air,
Never to re-enter our sight?

I hope so.

Your eyes
Are red and swollen
But still they're spectacularly lucid.

Your gentle little moon-white hands tremble
And clutch at your knees.

Your sweet, soft voice shakes
As you tell me what you've needed to
And what you've carried far too long.

The words had been heavy stones in your quiet body
But they flow out freely from you as water from Christ's punctured side
Become almost nothing
Dissipate like smoke.

You're freed from your burden
And we hold each other and sing
I've got a feeling
It's gonna be all *right.

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.

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!

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.

Trying to get through
This endless pile of papers,
I brew another *** of coffee,
Smoke another cigarette,
Think I might be dying (for good measure)
And close the door.

But all I can think about is you
Out there on the sofa
Under the yellow-and-white afghan
Shooting up and watching that old telenovela

So I give up.
And I grab us a couple of PBRs
And we lay there together,
Talking about your metaphysical journey.
I say something funny
And you go all red
And you hit me so hard
The wind all comes out of my chest.

I'm upstairs on the bed
Crying
And there's eyeliner down past my cheekbones.

And you come in
And you kiss my forehead
And I close my eyes
And I give in.

Waking up with your arm slung over my back
Incense on the table burning down to nothing
Like the remnants of my life,
I can't remember what made me love you.

I've got my bare feet on the floor
And I'm running my toes through the high-pile plush
And it's making a noise like the ocean does
When it rolls over that pure white Key West sand
We laid on back when times were good.

We're listening to Fairport Convention
And you say something about Tam Lin
And I think about how you're like him:
Once I saw you as so noble, knightlike.

And now you've become this evil thing,
Stealing wealth and purity from high-class Christian girls
(Almost always blondes).

So I decide that when the faerie queen shows up
To pay her tithe to Satan
I'll break the clasp of my arms around your form
And abandon you to your well-deserved fate.

But then, grey elf,
Your dewy eyes catch mine
And in my weakness I know I'd hold you tight
In the face of Lucifer himself.

So I stay here with your fingers intertwined in mine
And our palms sweat in the heat of our stuffy living room(dying room?)
But we don't let go;
We wouldn't for anything in this world or Hell.

When you get home,
You won't help me in the kitchen.

So you walk into the living room
And I get an idea.
I call your name
And you come back in and see me there,
Shirtless, stirring cookie dough.

We end up on that putrid brown sofa
Your arms around my waist
You kiss me until my lips are raw, and...
After, we lay there with your arms around me
And you fall asleep, your breath heavy and slow.
You're dreaming now,
About that pretty girl from San Fransisco.

I roll over and it wakes you up
And we don't know what time it is
But I don't care if we're late
Because you're warm and you smell so sweet
And you kissed my forehead like you did the first time.

I know you wouldn't stop me if I tried to leave
And it kills me
But I'll always be here with you
Even though I know I should be with him
With his camel blues and his tight jeans and his argyle sweater.

He's perfect and
We both know it.
You're nothing and I love you.

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.