I lay in the bathtub soaking
wet with water running
around my silhouette.  Shaking
as the washcloth smeared regrets
over my skin. The bubbles
give my sins a scent.

As I vent I leave the shower
running so my sobs
are the only thing drowning.
The constant tapping on my face
keeps me awake as I sink into
the various stews my mind creates.

Weights are lifted with pruning. Peeling
of dead skin keeps me from
reeling into depression. There is a harmonic
progression between the faucet and my face,
the scrubbing and my disgrace, the steam and
my own embrace.

I need this state. The decompression
from being bottled up, like a coke, with a smile
is worthwhile. It teaches me
that the expression of  weakness
is key in the building of a better Timothy.

and they call me spectrum, like the colors flashing through the crowded room and the different spectrum of souls found inside.

Your sweetness,
A sad that you'll
Never
Be mine.

I read so many poems about the tangling of souls,
or the intertwining of limbs
and hearts.

Combining smiles with flowers,
everlasting this and thats, laughter
with bullets, memories in objects. Boring,
all of it.

I read the cliches, the red colors
associated with passions of flesh
and mind.
The blue oceans mingled with longing.
Still winds with waiting.

I read these things and think of how
far away from any sense of truth.

Neruda finds love in bread,
cummings finds it in buildings,
Bukowski
in beer.

No one remembers that love is
in chemicals - that true love finds
its way through all chemical imbalances,
all sense in senses.

I can be drunk with you,
I can be high with you,
I can be depressed,
anxious,
hyperactive,
crazy, boastful, cheerless,
smug, annoying,
annoyed,
frantic, courageous,
bashful,
broken,
crying, dying and dealing
with my own **** self

and I still feel my love for you
(and your love for me).

Why do poets pick
one image, one allusion,
to craft a poem about a truth that overtakes all?

It seems lazy, unfortunate.
It does wrong
in my eyes. This is where
discipline has destroyed
what they try to express.

When was love ever disciplined?

No, my love is not a red, red
rose because my love is punk
rock and she'll fight you
if you try to say she's not.
She drinks and smokes
and would intellectually crush any girl
who thinks

that love poems define proper behavior.