I am only here.
It's not for you,
or her,
or him,
or them.
I am only here.

I am only here.

Cold.
Sitting,
engine off.
Mind wandering, but,
mostly to your body touching mine.

Those envied places which do know her well,
And are so scornful of this lonely place,
Even now for once are emptied of her grace:
Nowhere but here she is: and while Love’s spell
From his predominant presence doth compel
All alien hours, an outworn populace,
The hours of Love fill full the echoing space
With sweet confederate music favourable.

Now many memories make solicitous
The delicate love-lines of her mouth, till, lit
With quivering fire, the words take wing from it;
As here between our kisses we sit thus
Speaking of things remembered, and so sit
Speechless while things forgotten call to us.

(from a song)

Perhaps I was born kneeling,
born coughing on the long winter,
born expecting the kiss of mercy,
born with a passion for quickness
and yet, as things progressed,
I learned early about the stockade
or taken out, the fume of the enema.
By two or three I learned not to kneel,
not to expect, to plant my fires underground
where none but the dolls, perfect and awful,
could be whispered to or laid down to die.

Now that I have written many words,
and let out so many loves, for so many,
and been altogether what I always was?
a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,
I find the effort useless.
Do I not look in the mirror,
these days,
and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?
Do I not feel the hunger so acutely
that I would rather die than look
into its face?
I kneel once more,
in case mercy should come
in the nick of time.

*******.

The end.

Boring
Is what I am.
He sees it, she sees it, you see it.
Never finding words.
That's what boring is.
It's okay.
Talking to myself
Keeps me safe.
Safe and boring.
That is what I will be.

You were my first.
You were my longest, real thing.
I don't know why I didn't open myself up to you more.
I remember when you told me you "weren't looking for anything".
But, that you still enjoyed my company and cared about me more than most people.
This happened when you lost your job.
You were outside, exchanging words with some sort of boss.
I looked out at this through your window, shivering, naked.
I knew it wasn't good.
I got up, put my clothes on, and walked to my car.
You immediately saw me and followed.
I got in, you got in.
You asked me to come back inside, that it was cold and we could lay in bed and forget whatever was happening.
I didn't go back inside.
I went to see someone else, someone I shouldn't have.
I told you I was going home.
I lied.
I wish I would have stayed with you.
Maybe things would be different now.
Maybe things wouldn't be different now.
It was a hard time for you.
The anniversary of your mother's suicide, the loss of your job.
You were in no shape for me, I know.
And I didn't even know I loved you until it all ended.