the steep ceiling held culture and resistance,
as if it was to forewarn my angles and eye sight of the
high powers and street talk that hung over the bad ones.
i guess i don't know enough about religion or the great
  enlightenment to feel comfortable to intellectually
       give the word to the people.
                              (i could almost feel the jealousy burning off my fingers as i write this.)
                                        "i wish i could sway you with the words
                                          i contained in dainty letters and home-
                                          made thank you cards, but nothing settled
                                          this debate."
i sweltered through this indication that you had it,
you were better than me by a few sentences,
and i plotted a gentle whisper through the hole in the plaster.
i took a record player and some water from the fridge in the
hopes you could see how serious i was.

you didn't notice.

i locked myself out to forget about the times your synchronized
collection followed me out of town.

telephone lines wrap around our wrists and fingers, holding us up for something less special,
we were never meant to be together - with bows in my hair and mismatched socks folded to your ankles;
i just didn't see the parallel love enough to keep the conversation going on both ends in different booths.
i talked for you, puppet glued to the ideas that i ask and you follow with simple lines
of
two sense. (or two cents, rather.)
so, i redialed to give you some time for focused thoughts or to walk away.

funny, i didn't even use your name,
or even think about coming over for
evening tea and to view films with dashing young men like yourself.

but, we never had the chance to correlate our likes
and hopes
and possibilities because

the telephone fights and make ups were the center of
our little world that you took as
"us".

so i'm cutting myself from the phone line to take
a break and shake the mouth movement motions.

*please insert two quarters to stay on the line...

the cracks in the walls beg your attention away from the coffee rings
covering the linen on the table and the little things.
you are sure they have meaning,
bending and drawing out stories from your darting heart,
deepening its tarnished encasing.
the taste of metal and past histories touch
on the lines tethered at each opening and you said
you only wanted to be heard of.
so you pieced up some anger to throw down on papers,
took your long list of selfish hunger,
and held them up to the wall.

it gave you nothing back to absorb.

the space between a hard place and your empty shell
can measure the distance between your ribs and the
paper muscle you use for scribbling temptations and love.
that doesn't change history,
but it could change your mind.