craves attention
from all like the
***** of Babylon
and every girl
who never knew
her father.

I used to think your eyes
could save my life,
in the middle of Summer.
But the days are shortening
and growing colder like your
eyes and tone when you
talk about things about love
and current events.

It's 4:17 A.M. and the
alcohol is wearing off.
I feel you creeping
back through my veins
like poison.
Bulging veins, busted
blood vessels. Eyes red
with guilt and hope
that they'll see that
******* car round the corner
and stop in front of my house
Blonde locks out of the driver's
seat like the prettiest little promise.
Prettiest. little. Promise.

The alcohol is burning
a fire through my veins
that makes every love
you ever showed me
microscopic in comparison.
Minuscule and disproportionate.

Words are trickling
out of this fountain
pen that are not my own.
Plagiaristic. Echoey.

Your words forming
on my lips and fingers.
Your art, my life.
How I yearn to make
my voice the one
that is heard.

Instead it chokes
like Casey at the Bat.
It splinters like
the spreading chestnut tree.
Where I should have never
kissed you and you
never should have kissed me.

She's moving to the big city.
Leaving this Podunk town
behind in a blaze of smoke,
sarcasm, short steps.
Accomplishments.

She's dancing away
from this town
with the grace of
grandmothers and women
long since past. Past
the cracked sidewalks
and brick streets, down
the highway. Out of here.
Out of here.

Shelly says nothing
ever really turns out
just the way we expect.

She's right. Nothing
turns out just
the way we expect
like secret hand-holding
in backyard trees.

Or the way maps
become our enemy.
That impossible geography
that separates two halves
like the years lost in
a flurry of blows
and caresses.