This transparent veil to cover transparency is suffocating me.

I want to rip off this fabric and know that when I touch your flesh you feel the compassion, not the contact
I want to knock teeth when we kiss and hear thundering laugh and not the muffled titters of nervousness
I want 10 minutes to go by and we're already buried deep in our conversation via messages
Because I don't care.  I don't care that there's this new found stigma that caring is out and mysterious is in. Because I don't care if you text me without a reason, because oh hey!  I was just thinking about you!  Because I like your company, because I'm tired of deciphering ambiguous words.  Because life isn't a ******* code.  It's thrilling, it's open, it's here.  I'm here.

I want you to know I'm here.

Better that every fiber crack
and fury make head,
blood drenching vivid
couch, carpet, floor
and the snake-figured almanac
vouching you are
a million green counties from here,

than to sit mute, twitching so
under prickling stars,
with stare, with curse
blackening the time
goodbyes were said, trains let go,
and I, great magnanimous fool, thus wrenched from
my one kingdom.

as the poems go into the thousands you
realize that you've created very
little.
it comes down to the rain, the sunlight,
the traffic, the nights and the days of the
years, the faces.
leaving this will be easier than living
it, typing one more line now as
a man plays a piano through the radio,
the best writers have said very
little
and the worst,
far too much.
from ONTHEBUS - 1992

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

The only man I ever loved
Said good bye
And went away
He was killed in Picardy
On a sunny day.