My wife, a psychiatrist, sleeps
through my reading and writing in bed,
the half-whispered lines,
manuscripts piled between us,

but in the deep part of night
when her beeper sounds
she bolts awake to return the page
of a patient afraid he'll **** himself.

She sits in her robe in the kitchen,
listening to the anguished voice
on the phone. She becomes
the vessel that contains his fear,

someone he can trust to tell
things I would tell to a poem.

i found myself alone in my living room at ungodly hours of the night watching tv shows about politics and listening to poetry at the same time and trying not to say the wrong thing to tip off my friends that i want to **** myself because hey if i tell them then i can't do it and that's my problem. but then i started wonder why they're called ungodly hours. is it because god doesn't save anyone during these times? or did he just never save in the first place?

i found myself when i did not need to find myself in a higher power to find peace. how can you love someone else if you can't love yourself first? i spent an entire year researching and experimenting ways to "enlighten" myself (and i use that word lightly) and i think i finally found the way but when i introduced the idea of Buddhist meditation and chanting mantras of self healing and finding peace to my parents, my father told me i was tearing this family apart and "why can't you be normal?" and "this is not what our family believes in." and "what's wrong with the catholic church?" What's wrong with the catholic church is that i feel like a lesbian drug addict who needs massive amounts of alcohol to keep from killing herself whenever the priest looks at me, as if he can smell the gay on me like a dog who can sniff out a cancerous disease. What's wrong with the catholic church is that i feel like i'm stepping inside a political headquarters rather than praying to a god to help me not feel guilty about doing bad things and perhaps hoping he'll send something good my way even though i don't deserve it and i'm probably not going to heaven anyway because the bible told me that if i make love to another woman then i'm going to find a gathering of NHL hockey goalies in front of the pearly gates to keep me out. but my question is why people are so concerned with the sexuality of people that they aren't sleeping with, this was not the technical form of *** so i wasn't breaking two rules in one stone but i just "chose" the wrong sin. but hey, the devil said he's down to hang out with me as long as i don't mind the heat.

i found myself in the bed of a girl who always smelled like coconuts and had no respect except for herself and for me. she made me feel like i was at home even though i was miles away and didn't speak the language that well. i wanted to carve poems into the bones of her spine, she would never be able to see them but she would have the knowledge that they existed because her skin did. her existence ultimately created a contradiction for me, do i fall in love with a girl who could never love me back or am i able to stick to what my parents believe in but they'll never be happy with me anyway? i had to pick the lesser evils of the two, and she could never be evil to me. she could grab me by the throat, tell me to beg for mercy and i could reach out to shake death's hand and i would still want to kiss the fingertips the were wrapped around my neck. she could throw me down the flight of stairs and i'd still stare at her all the way down because if i were to die i want her to be the last thing i see. she could rip off my fingers at the knuckles and tie them around the christmas tree like the lights we use every year and i would still find ways to trace her body even more gently than before. she cannot cause harm to me as long as she is still within plane distance. as long as i don't have to give my life to see her again then i will always find myself in her. and even when we are dead and buried in the ground, i will swim to you like a mermaid of the soil just to be next to your bones.

i found myself when i started to get into fist fights with a god who forgot about me. i found myself when i started to call out death's bluffs, and death talked a lot of **** for a guy who couldn't follow through with anything. i found myself in the drugs and alcohol and my sudden stoppage of my use. i found myself in my yearning for death and drugs and alcohol but i found myself in my ability to say no because they only worsen my state of mind. And you only worsen me.

You were as stealthy as a slow gas leak, by the time i knew i was in love with you, i had succumbed to you. You were in the drivers seat of my car lighting a cigarette with the windows up so i could breathe you in. I quit smoking so your secondhand smoke was all you would allow. I watched as you brought the cigarette to your lips and dragged in as if your life depended on it. It was your third one today and i told you that you should stop, maybe breathe me in for a second. Do you know what i would give to become second hand smoke from your lips? All you would have to do is kiss me and i would vanish into thin air, become a noble gas in the periodic table but there is nothing noble about the element of disappearance. I have been shrinking away from you ever since you held my hand in that convenience store a year ago. I'm trying to convince myself to get over you because all i am to you is someone to **** slowly through your second hand smoke. I never knew I could get so addicted to nicotine until it came from under your tongue. When you're gone, it's hard for me to breathe which doesnt make sense because when youre here my lungs are filled with your sweet black tar. But you will be gone for months when you leave in two weeks. You said you'd write to me, but written words can't carry your second hand smoke. You can't build a home out of a human being, but that doesn't mean i cant find a home in your bed.

we were held together
by name tags and aprons,
cold air catching in our lungs
and warm cigarettes burning
between our shaking
finger tips

"guys it's 12:05"
didn't sound much
like a fact,
more like a suggestion

there was no outward
celebration
filled with
champagne
high heels
and a television
but a pensive
awakening
filled with
eye rolls
dark laughter
and light sarcasm

I thought about how
at this time
two years
earlier
I was trying
on a variety
of fake smiles
infront of the
bathroom mirror
in Amy's basement

well it's been
a while since
I've felt the need
for red lipstick,
even longer since
I've worried about
the stains it might
leave on my teeth

I guess we let the seasons
change with a distant sense
of apathy but even when
we can't feel the change,
we know in concentrated
recollection that not a
single thing has
remained the same
still, we hesitate to say
that anything is different