Disturbing the birds
Reminiscent of pale leaves
In Autumn breezes

As the doves scatter
A dozen falling pages
Catch the sun's white light

Behind them, they leave
A memoir of their presence:
A small white flyleaf.

I don't know what I am doing here.
At least I feel safe, for the moment.

This seat is warm from my heat.
They are talking but I do not know them.

I am lost in my own exhausted world.
I never knew how well the word malaise fit me.

This private access to your face stays upon my lap.
It is feeding from the outlet in the wall.

I am only exacerbating my addiction.
I am addicted to your face.

Your beautiful, careless face.
It makes me sick, but I can't resist.

What am I doing here?
I'm uncomfortable within my own skin.

I'm itching for a way out from the inside.
Spiders are stepping gracefully upon my veins.

I'm swimming in nausea.
My eyes are shifting to and fro.

My head is the worst of it all.
These thoughts of you are eating me alive.

Because I'm not supposed to be
thinking of you.
I should be thinking
of him;
but when had we decided we
were in love?
He assumed, I'm sure.
I don't remember ever discussing it.

And you.
Look at you assuming things
just like he has.

But I don't care to tell you
you're wrong
because
you're right.

You remind me of that boy;
the one who smelled

sweet

in the summer time.
Immature and
out of sync --
I pretended to love
all that he was.

I hate to say it to myself,
but you remind me of him
sometimes.
The way you laugh and the way
you act
throws me into terrible
recollections
of days best forgotten.

And yet,

Here I am searching for
your blue eyes and
your left handed scribble
and
that mess of brown hair--
characteristics of every man
I've really loved--
and that scruff you call a beard,
black shirts and forced smiles.

I'm aching for your voice
mumbling incoherently into my hair;
aching for your arms,
warm and strong
and soporific; aching for
your lips
warm and sweet
pressed against mine,

as they were that one night
upon the dance floor:
quick and only once
but enough to make me cry.

I'm only making things
worse for myself.
I'm barely getting along in this house--
I've run out of things to do
and things to say
and things to think
to myself,
yet I sit still here
imitating your presence before
me, telling myself

it's only so long
until Saturday.

i.
Outside of this room
is a house
with four other human inhabitants,
two dogs, two fish,
and countless microscopic things.
They are all alive,
they are all living.
And if I listen over the vent I
can hear them speaking
(the humans, I mean).
I think they are cooking, and
maybe they're smiling.
Just a small house around
this small room around
me.

Outside of this house
is a city
and if I knew the population
I'd quote it.
They are all alive,
they are all dying.
Even the unborn
already has started its
undetermined journey to
ashes.
And perhaps they are crying
(the born ones, I mean).
Perhaps they are
staring up at clouds or
ignoring the clouds or
taking the clouds for granted.
Wherever they are, whoever they are,
they are all a part of this.
Just a small city around
a small house around
this small room around
me.

Outside of this city
is a country
and the numbers of the population
I don't care to know.
I guess they're alive;
I know we're all trying.
Whether it's trying to live
or
trying to die I'll
never know.
I have to wonder if
one of them is thinking of me
in the same abstract way
I'm thinking of them.
Somewhere, someone is saying goodbye.
Someone is saying hello to the
cold cement below.
Someone is polishing a ******
and someone is giving life.
Someone is replacing and
someone is replaced.
Just a small country around
a small city around
a small house around
this small room around
me.

Outside of this country
is a world
and most of it I will never see.
Beneath the waters are
secret creatures
swimming and breathing --
different from us.
But we believe we're all
connected in some way,
twisted and spinning
and tangled strings
invisibly tie us together.
And I admit I sound repetitive
and cliché when I say
that this is
Just a small world around
a small country around
a small city around
a small house around
this small room around
me.

                      ii.
Inside of this room
is me
and perhaps a million or more
of my closest friends.
To the left is a tub which
hasn't been cleaned in ages
and to the right is
a toilet with the lid down.
I turn on the vent to wrap
silence and warmth around me
like a familiar, worn out blanket
(and on occasion to rid this room
of the smell).
I think clearest on
the bathroom floor.

Somewhere, out there,
you're thinking of me.
You, and him, and he is, too.
(And I suppose I can't forget
you, dear reader.)
But me, I'm thinking of
dark red carpets and blue tile
and off-white walls.
The ***** laundry is all mine.
I'm sure most of the hair in the carpets
is mine, too.
I'm leaving my mark
and living and breathing and feeling
right here,

all alone in a little room
around my little frame
around my little thoughts.

Somewhere a snail
consumes a salad
in the middle of a field.

I am growing old
beneath this ceiling.
Mind you, I've always been
growing old,
but I regret growing old
here, in this
ridiculous excuse
of a room.

There are ants, you know.
I don't think they
can wait much longer.
But tell them it's okay,
I'll be in their home
soon enough.

And what is this?
Do you
really expect me to eat --
this?
Would you eat it? Dried lettuce,
old tomatoes, gray pieces of
carrots hiding beneath a sad attempt
at dressing.
Pathetic, that's what they give me here.
Pathetic.

But I bide my time.
Have you seen my poetry
in the hallways?
They've hung some, you know.
It's as if this were
a preschool,
and the nurses were
our teachers,
and the things we do to
keep our minds "busy"
(I prefer "preoccupied")
were things to be proud of.
It's like I'm back where
I started --
just a bit less
naïve.

That man, next door,
do you remember him?
He spoke to you the last time
you visited.
They took him to the back
a few days ago.
Please, son, you have to promise me,
you won't let them
take me there.
No one ever returns.

I think that's where they take us to
die.

*Then she turned to me,
that familiar, cynical smile
I've known all my life stretched
across her face, and she asked,
"What's the difference between
a nursing home and
an asylum?"

like subtle strings i can feel you
breaking;
apart, alone, distanced and isolated i can feel you
drifting;
like a phase i was only a dream--
transient;
you can say i'm still there and you're still here,
yet
there you go, drifting off into your dark clouds
again,
looking back at me with remorse--
i was too much a spectator to keep the strings
stable.