I need to feel alive again.
---Need,
   like air---
I need it to be alive.

I'm so jaded
the infectious numbness
has pushed me out of my skin
---as if it were a glove,

and my soul is the naked hand exposed to sunlight.

Submerge me in life's cool pools
because as a fish I am
gasping and gulping for sustenance,
for water to breathe.

Laid out completely bare in
the barren landscape of emotionless doldrums,
barely frozen but numb just the same,
I stare at the permanent face

fog-breathed in the static mirror of the sky.

Watch
myself
live

as if everything is a dream I am both
wholeheartedly devoted to
and
watching from afar.

Watch myself walking---
---I am walking---
but sleeping awake
and feeling nothing.

Awake, awake, awake
every sleepy night---

who's story am I living now?

Simple and simply put--
light cast down lightly
in shadows' gentle chill.

Flickering darkness in search
of flesh upon flesh
and soft voices echoing.

Love and lovely rustles--
butterflies beneath fan blades
collecting dust in their stillness.

Eyes catching candlelight flames
and smiling--
forever and always in night's short hours.

A starlit ceiling--
we never were anything else
but lovers fated to dream of sunlight.

He said, "Walk faster,"
so I did.

Nevermind the cockroaches on the sidewalks
or the locusts in the grass.
Forget the cicadas in the trees
and the worms within the dirt.

Dress to impress, and
impressive I was,
beneath a stoplight shining red
for no one and nothing but asphalt
dim in the night.

As worthless as
a pavement girl in the suburbs
what more did I have to live for?

Except to make the boys
dance and whisper
please please baby.

What more to do and
who to please?
Smashed between the earth and the stars
numbness seeps into the pores like a soul.

When tomorrows are all the same
and todays are passing dreams
I don't fight it but instead
join in and revel in

the lust blowing like dust on the wind.

She looked up at me then.

"What do you mean,
you're leaving?"

I sighed.
Sighing seemed like the
normal thing to do.

This was becoming redundant.

"Look, you understand
basic English, right?
What else could I mean when I say,
'I'm leaving?'"

Her mouth puckered;
she was frustrated.
I'd seen this face numerous times
in the last sixteen months.
I suppose I was born to frustrate.

"Don't insult me,"
she spat, her tears betraying
how hurt she was.
"This is just...
a shock to me, is all."

I shrugged.

"Can't help that, babe,"
I said.
"And you knew this would happen
someday, so quit your crying.
Your paint will run."

A sniff. Then--

"It's paintings like you
that make me happy I'm not
really smiling."

There fly the butterflies again,
and flutter through my mind
the thoughts of you.

Your heartbeat and your warmth
permeating my own thin skin
pulsing blood through my veins
and into you.

You are life and I am life
and we are breathing our scents
into each other's lungs.

But fear I that his wall should stand
an impenetrable membrane
just solid enough to keep us from embracing;

just solid enough to
keep me from falling into you.

Haunting apathy clouds and clots
the blood beneath insomniac eyes
and the thoughts becoming tangible
simply search for reasons.

If everything is settled now, then
why the sudden start of regression
leading to apathetic depression
from a catalyst to happiness?

Temporary respite from endless fatigue
and allergies to chocolate cake--
sick in my mouth and mind
and lethargy the glue between my sheets:

a silent prayer never crosses the ceiling
because amidst all the turmoil of
a phantom city
never was a god.

in the twilight of dawn
I can already hear the shower.
quietly I wonder where the
time went.
I turn over and face the
peeling paint on the wall,
trying to grasp those
vestiges of a dream which
faded to air motes and half-light.

okay, I'll make breakfast today,
and I hope you like oranges.
no, I never bothered to memorize
which fruits you like
in the morning. I know
it's been years, but
I'm not superman and
you knew that when you said
I do.

don't tell me not to
grumble quietly to myself;
I need this bubble of
relative sanity
if I am to survive
5 am showers for
nobody.
you are fresh and clean,
an angel,
and your blowdried hair
frizzes out like a halo.
not a hint of gray.
must be a new color
you're using.

all right, fine,
I won't light a cigarette,
but I also won't
change my shirt.
I like the sweat stains.
they make my profession seem
like work and not
like poetry.

I retreat to
the backroom
where my typewriter sits
upon its unholy altar.
the radio beside it
stands presently silent
amidst the ashes
and crumpled pages.
I would sigh as
I sat down on my sagging chair,
but I am not
a sighing man.

instead, I groan slightly
as my joints protest
in their groggy morning voices
and rest my ***
upon the threadbare cusion
of my favorite
wooden chair.
I find a station on the radio;
something Haydn composed is
floating through,
and I talk to
my secretary.

her voice clicks and clacks
and rings when she breathes.
she's speaking in stanzas
and only I
can silence her.

but this ***** ain't done
confessing just yet.