Hmm, what's this?--hourglass figure,
trickle sands of time
tick tick tick
tick
Who are youwerbistdu? Hmm, what's this?--a spider,
step veins cry tremor
click click click
dead.

Too bad you don't know-
Or maybe you do?
The way,
The way I look at you?

You make me smile,
Lazy ***,
Don't you know that?

Please, stop.

I was a moth
drawn to your flame
once.

I was a moth
when I saw your candle
extinguish
from afar.

I was a moth
being burned by your embers
touching
the scales on my wings.

I was a moth
on your doorstep;
I fluttered about the light on your front porch
while
you kissed her goodnight.

I was a moth;

I was a moth;

I am a moth,
and I am dying.

I am a moth,
and there is little time left for me.

For, in a month,
the magnetism will cease,
and the flame
will burn out.

Then what is left?

Lonesome--I cannot write today.

I read your words like heartbreak
heartbroken
from your bleeding pen

leaving tears on the page.

And see where here we are foremost together;
alas a dreamingdream in a picture frame.

Interrupted only I thirst for water downed the drain.

This is only an appeal to the beginning,
a reference to something present and
a radio signal to what endsshallend.

EverytimeIwrite I feel
a little more
eighteen and a little less
four
and twelve
and seventysix.

But I long for Seven.

Lonesome--I cannot write today.

Shan't winit, shanty, so give the lass a kiss from 'far and wee.

Itwasallingood fun,--so--(where nowhere I belong is
wherever you may be)

And can't you see I love you?(where far and shingle
houses ullulate and wait) I undulate and unzip
but whichweigh the feather lightly?

Lonesome--I cannot write today.

So write tomorrow, I say.

I haven't thought about it
in a while,
that time I carved thin marks in
the sand with a
razor blade.

But as I was sweeping the beach,
I found them, now old
and barely there,
yet still present and visible
in the sun.

Eventually someone would
notice them, perhaps
as they stepped through
barefoot and sticky
from the sea.

I'm sure someday
all the footprints
from other people's lives
will erase the little marks
and all else besides.

I waited until the darkness
brushed its hand through
the sand
and the moon took the tide up
to wash them away.

The storm outside grew calmer,
calmer and calmer still,
until

we realized the birds were out
and suddenly, people were
mowing

their lawns and making noise
and why did it have to be so loud
when

it was more quiet during the storm
as the storm outside grew calmer,
calmer and calmer; still.

Sonnet III

The angel's wings were folded at his side;
his perfect feathers neatly tucked in rows
of white were shining in the sun. Below,
the earth was turning; water blue belied
the peace the world possessed. He stood beside
a newly-risen soul, a babe whose nose
had never breathed before it decomposed,
whose eyes had never seen and never cried.

The angel took the soul's small hand in his
and led the babe to see the almost-birth
it never had, the almost-life and love
of humans it would never feel. From this
it turned away. Forgetting mother earth,
the babe grew wings and lived its life above.

Sonnet II

Beneath the moon and scattered stars, between
the night and day, I find the threads of light
are pooling into puddles from the beams
of softly glowing cosmic things tonight.

Away, the wind takes up its nightly ruse
to rouse the ruffled pigeons' sleeping forms.
The moon speaks softly; she, my only muse,
continues nightly duties she performs.

The doves, asleep, are dreaming little dreams
about tomorrow's promise: sun and clouds.
The moon their plumage catches, sets agleam
the feathers moving with the wind. Aloud,

I whisper wishes, all of them of you;
I know the moon may someday make them true.

Sonnet I

Across the bridge, I saw within my mind
--not missing it, but rather finding it--
an older love, the kind I'd left behind.
'Twas like the grains of sand, which never fit

together in the hour glass, but fight
for freedom 'gainst each other, falling down
until they land on top each other, right
and left of where they want to be. The frown

that took my face--which left it starved for joy--
reminded me of loving him; but now
there is another one, another boy
who loves the way I laugh. I now know how

to leave behind the one, the lost, the old,
for something new: the one I love to hold.

I love you.
I guess you already knew that;
even so, beneath the stars
and winding cars

I love you.
It's old news, this.
Even without your caring
force, I'm staring--

I love you.
You say that you know;
you say you knew all along;
silly, go on:

I love you.

We went to the movies the day of the apocalypse.
We happened to be the only ones there
and neither of us heard a thing.

It was like something out of the Twilight Zone;
everyone was gone and we were left without our glasses
and a book full of poetry which had been scratched out.

And all we ever muttered was,
"There was so much time;
there was so much time."

And then the frog like blueberry jam
whispers to the fly, “It knows who I am.”
And the whale with a shark tooth, and a laugh in his ear
smiles to the front, and frowns to the rear.
While the man says to me, “Look inside, can’t you see?
At the bottom of the bag is the deep blue sea.”
Hullo? Is anyone there?
Please let the spiders out of my hair.

Ooh, crazy, crazy, crazy,* they whisper all at once, now, together.
You, you do not belong here.
ha! ha!
And the lights are too bright, god ******.
Still talking to her? Now there's a pity worth a princess.
A princess in a tower?
A princess with a towel
and a dragon and a trowel
but she'll never have loose bowels
oh, the chicken with the towels.
A few random moments of clarity;
I don't need charity.
It's a rarity,
I'll guarantee,
but prithee, why so far?

The cactus ate the moon;
a cosmic starflower;
a cyanide razorblade.

You ate your way through the mouse droppings
in the cereal bowl
and look at me through lens-less everythings.

The sun took the moon
to his midnight hideaway
and she was absent that night.

Beneath the artificial breeze
blowing noisily, raucous;
birds in a tree eating acorns like squirrels do.

I never gave you hope;
I never gave you nothing;
I never gave you what you deserved.

Senseless, mindless, wandering wanderlust
wonderlust
you're keeping yourself company tonight.

Ha! playing with yourself again, I see.
Picking your nose and rubbing your toes
in the sandy sandy dandy boy beaches.

Friendly, never ceasing.

Repeating repeating repeating lines
repeating repeating repeating signs
repeating repeating relocating lies

Nice to just let go
no reality
no gravity.

But I'm not defying, no
nor scrying, oh
but lying, go.

She gave me her hand
and expected me to restitch the fibres
as if I were ever so good a tailor.

Surgeon.

Nevermind.

I hope you've buried her body.
Somewhere deep, somewhere hidden
so you'll never find her again.

I want to hate you for the way
you felt about her.
I want to hate you.

But I can't.

sleep deprivation:
I wrap a blanket of the stuff
around me
and drink another round of
coffee.

no, that's a lie. I'm not drinking
coffee. I'm drinking--
get this--
sorrow and you know what?
black.

sleep deprivation:
is it too much to say that I'm
waiting for you to call and
answer that heavy question
I'd asked two days ago.

why do you love me?

no, that's not a lie. I really did
ask him that.
don't believe me?

well, he's _5 and I'm not
seventeen years enough to get
anything out of the way he
feels for me.

sleep deprivation:
enough to hallucinate circles
and twiddley-lumps on strangers.

suffice to say I'm waiting on the
insignificance of the moment,
the unimportance of the lifetime.

like the lifetime of a star on the other
side of the universe:
she burned herself out and is now just

a ten cent ****** with a smoker's cough.

sleep deprivation:



                                         ha, circles.

There, departing--did you see?--
my inspiration fleeing from me.

Where is your heart steadfast?
Has it gone to follow some weary dream
And left you here to wallow in the past?
Pray, tell me its awful scheme.

Has it gone to follow some weary dream:
Your heart of gold, my lover last?
Pray tell me its awful scheme
That I may rescue you fast.

Your heart of gold, my lover last--
Gone, I fear, to drown in the stream.
That I may rescue you fast
Never lose your eyes agleam.

Gone, I fear, to drown in the stream,
And left you here to wallow in the past
Never lose your eyes agleam;
Where is your heart steadfast?

The mountains crest in trees gold,
Haze and dew settle to night appease
As the sun rises to words untold.

It's as it's been since days of old;
Changing colors and changing leaves;
The mountains crest in trees gold.

I watch, let the day unfold
As spiders mingle in the eaves;
As the sun rises to words untold.

The cabin sits near a stream cold
Which rushes 'neath the sunrise breeze--
The mountains crest in trees gold.

Calling forth the flight of birds,
the march of ants, the drone of bees--
As the sun rises to words untold.

A glory fairest to behold,
None is greater than of these:
The mountains crest in trees gold
As the sun rises to words untold.

You’ve gone to find what you had lost when you
Were young and we were young and love was still
Inside of us.  You took my words and to
Your end you left them there like cups to fill.
And now they sit upon the window sill
Collecting dust and bugs and rain like sieves;
They’re dripping, draining--- and we’ve time to ****
Before fall down our tears like autumn leaves.
But what you lost was love; it gathers cobwebs in the eaves.

Now by my side you sit silent, alone---
You say you’re shouting inside, but to you
I’m blind. Have not I well enough you shown
My love, my care, and feelings towards you, too.
Quite like a bird you think from you it flew.
It’s lost on you, and here now you despair;
And there to gray skies turn your skies of blue.
All lost, all lost, and whither shall you fare?
Once you are dead and gone, no, I shall not meet you there.

You were so cute
when you loved me
and now you're an arrogant *******.

You were so loving
when you loved me
and now it's almost as if you hate me.

You were so beautiful
when you loved me
and now I can't stand to see you.

You were so perfect
when you loved me
but now you've fallen from grace.

And I wonder if
now that you love her
you're everything you were to me.

Cute, loving, beautiful, perfect;
are you all these things?

Or are you pretending for her
like you did for me?

I want you to remember everything you've ever done for me.
I don't ever want you to forget me.
I want you to stay for me, to wait for me--
because I'm selfish and vain
and can't stand to have you
not love me.

As I flip the calendar page,
I think back to everything which has happened
throughout this year.
So close to the end, I cannot help but think
about those things which changed me.
Like those hospitalizations,
for depression, they said;
for bipolar, they said;
and all those medications.
And now, they have me half-asleep,
a waking zombie,
because they don't want me getting paranoid.
I miss that black cat.
And I miss getting giddy about the faces in the night.
November, you leave me
changed.

Woken from a dream by nothing but the fanblades--
It's two a.m. and I'm left wondering
silly things, of course--
and maybe I'm still sleeping anyway.
I wonder if I ever really loved you
and I wonder if you still...

Everything's gone wrong since you.
You like to say that it's your fault I had the seizures,
but that's my fault. I did that to myself.
All of this is my fault.
I couldn't let you go.
You know, it's funny;
I led you on because I liked the attention.
And I let you have me so I wouldn't lose you---
and look what that did.

And even when it was time to let you go---
"Let's cheat; let's ****,"
was in your eyes that night.
So I didn't let you go.

I tried, at some point---
I told you I hated you.
And you punched the ground.

Everything's gone wrong since you.

And now they have me on some medication.
That's my fault, too.
It makes me sleepy and it makes me numb---
everything feels gray now--
and lifeless.
You try to say something
to keep me from wanting to die
but you can't.
Even the clouds whose whispers
I heard and took pleasure in
have been grayed out by the sweeping hand
of medications.
There is nothing, anymore.

I wonder if you still love me.

I'm unfair, you know.
I want you to---
still love me.
I want you to be under my sticky spell---
I want you to do anything for me.
Even though we're long gone
and I have someone new now.

I wonder if I'm in love.

I told him yes but the meds---
they dull the soul
and turn the heart to stone.

It's two a.m. and I wonder too much.
I can feel myself hurting things.
This is what I get for being honest.

Saturday left me reeling with her
pleasures and passing fun.
Sunday left me wondering
what else there was to come.
Monday teased me, left me to die.
Tuesday found me beneath the open sky.
Wednesday left me stranded in the
middle of the road,
Thursday found me and
brought me only so far, but
Friday found the end for me,
in her shining golden car.

Let's go out to the ocean.

We can build our home where
anenomes grow
and the starfish lose their limbs among stones.
We can dance with the tide
and call the moon our mother
as she pulls us up from our watery home.

We can forget how to breathe--
grow gills and drink air--
forget how to swim and be fish--
be together in our house beneath the waves.

Let's dance in the schools
frolicking among the seaweed
growing too tall for the depths to the sun.
We can find shallow pools and take in the warmth
of the star we don't see anymore.

"I miss it," you say.

"I'll follow," I say.

Together we leave paradise for our forgotten tennis shoes.

Handholds placed at random
and footholds where my hands should go.
Down below, the bored crowd waiting its turn
and above, a spinning red light awaiting the bell.
Halfway up and I've realized
I never learned how to rock climb anyway.

Waking up to the window leaking life back into the cell
mixing with the white walls and echoing clock
and the dents in the door knobs.
I know I'm leaving today.
I don't take my medicine today.
I'm not going to be sleepy today.

Outside the creaky locked door I find nothing new
except faces I'll never see again and won't get to know,
this time.
Impatiently waiting for the call, for the call, for the call
when they'll let me out of this place.
Time ticks like a creaky fan on a summer afternoon,
consistently slowly.

Finally, out. Eight days gone and only my hair is longer.

On the floor the scent of coffee mixes with my perfume
and the musty smell of old books.
Here too early we welcomed ourselves in anyway
and she let us stay inside for a while.

I find myself a new thing to wear, here and there.
Happier now and content with myself
and rediscovering everything;
and I'm surprised to find everything where I left it.
Not just the clockwork of my room
but the architecture of the dining room as well.
The dresses are hung where they were before;
the tables haven't walked away.
With my name around my wrist I explore the nooks and crannies
and find no new spiders there.

But my eyes are different and the air more autumnal
than ever were before I went away.
The world isn't so dark and
maybe that's okay.

What am I doing?
****, I don’t know.
I’m spinning around
and flailing about
just trying to get a grip on
the walls, on the floor, on anything.
And you keep asking me questions;
I can’t handle the questions;
please stop asking me questions.
My head hurts enough as it is.
I’m lying to you;
I’m lying next to you;
I’m lying upon you.
I’m just ******* lying
through my teeth.
And by the skin of my teeth
I’m getting by.

Everything is a blur;
I guess that happens when you spin
out of control.
You’re taking advantage of me.
I’m letting you take advantage of me.
I’m so confused and you know it.
But you want me.
And if I don’t know what I want
it’d might as well be you.

The condensation is building up;
we’re making it hot in here.
And all the while all I can think about
is how much I’ll regret this later.
It is later and
I regret it now.
You keep telling me
how much you’ve enjoyed yourself
and you’re asking me questions.
Please stop asking me questions;
I can’t handle the questions.
My mind is so fogged up right now
like the glass of the mirrors.
Stop writing your name in the vapor.
I don’t need such a permanent reminder,
something I can’t clean off,
of what I’m doing to myself.
At least eventually your kiss will fade away.

Forever in a heartbeat, beat, beat;
a thousand heartbeats; a thousand forevers.
Somewhere the sunbeams catch your hair
alighting gently like sparrows at the tips,
turning each fly-away in turn a subdued golden hue
which radiates softly from your eyes.
Quiet sighs echo through the sheets;
Good morning, my love.
Unhurried, unworried;
Let's spend the day here.
Fading in and out, in and out of consciousness
to the sound of you breathing beside me;
waking up to feel your arms loosely pulling me back.
It's still too early yet;
though the sun has long since turned dark.
A crooked smile—the most beautiful thing I have ever seen—
and your voice telling me to
Dream sweetly. We'll eat in the morning.
Morning comes to rain; rain falls to autumn.
Beside me a yellow slip on the pillowcase reads
I don't love you.
I smile and listen for the sound of your footsteps.
I hear you, whistling tunelessly, and you call to me;
Have you woken yet?
As I meet you in the kitchen I find your eyes
and silently shake my head.
*I suppose one more day couldn't hurt.

Laughing, that's all they ever do is laugh.
Stupid children running rampant through my head
flipping switches and leaving lights on.
Papers crumple in mid-air
and my attention span goes numb.
P--
P--
P--
B--
B--
M--
M--
J--
                   What is
                               this
                       f    u    c    k    i    n    g
                               ­       thing?

I don't know you.

You speak and nothing comes out--
but fumes.

Are you anything at all?--
behind the veil
piano keys half-formed, drifting...

I don't know who you are--
what it takes to make you
fall in love, or
smile...

I'm sure it's simple,
it's all so very simple,
and you're just waiting for me
to figure it out,
aren't you?

I remembered our hotel staircase
and was suddenly sick with longing for you.
In my mind you're as beautiful as ever
and your voice still floats like
young spiders' silk threads in the air.
All the midnight city lights only
serve to remind me
of how long it's been since i last
held your hand.
Could I hold your hand again?

I'll never be the best,
     but at least I'll be something.

lingering
like a memory
but fresher--
the scent of your cologne
absorbed by my skin.

one a.m. headlights
and two strangers pass--
the rumble of your idle car
beneath the gray clouds
and beside our embracing forms.

just three minutes longer,
that's all i ask,
as i pull you closer and
hold you tighter.

i'll miss you,
we whisper.

only the breeze
hears.

Nothing on the floor--
greens and blues and lighter shades of pale
stretched out in stripes from the sun
shining through the curtains.

Solace in a puddle on the floor--
drip, drip, from the bloated ceiling tiles
browning from the rain.

Somewhere, down the garden path,
past the Easter lilies and scattered ferns,
a butterfly drinks the nectar
of a honeydew blossom.

I am here to hurt you.

Hand me your heart,
bleeding and succulent
and young,
and I will show you what it means
to have loved and lost.

I am here to love you.

Hand me your soul,
singing and blossoming
and pure,
and I will show you what it means
to ascend to heaven.

Embrace my smile.
Surrender to my eyes.

Convince yourself
that everything that is wrong in my head
is something you can fix.

Everything--
except you,
represented in the emptiness
of a nighttime landscape.

The suburbs glittering
and in the distance the refineries
I found one day with--

Why does the half-darkness
remind me of you?

If we never spent a night together,
never saw the lights suspended within
steel structures and burning fires,
why is it that I regret you now,

beneath the glare of buzzing light pollution
on the top floor of a garage?

Your name is beautiful.
Your name is so ******* beautiful,
and I want to cry.
Something about the z,
or perhaps the sch
that makes me think of
hurricanes and daisies.

It's all dreams now;
tornado pastures amidst
raindrops
s(h)ifting like a fog
where the light is thin.

But you don't live here anymore.
Your bed is empty and
the sheets lie neatly.
And when your air conditioner kicks on
the air it breathes
no longer smells of you.
I think I'll sneak in through your window
to sleep in your bed
beside the soft pillowed impression
of the memory of you.

The sand lies thin on
the carpeted floor;
acrylic-painted seashells
for housing hermit *****
rest beside the television
empty.
Within the walls
hallucinations of your voice
and on the keys of the piano
the indentations of your fingers.

The hammers are broken.
Still your melody plays.

But you don't live here anymore.
At 2 a.m. I wipe the condensation
from your window pane
and shine the flashlight into your eyes--
just my reflection in the glass.
My fingerprints are fresher than yours
and where my feet fall
the dust from your shoes will be late to meet.
I think I'll lie naked between your sheets
so maybe the mattress will remember
that you felt different than I do.

Your name is beautiful.
Something about the phr,
or the nia...

Under the streetlights shining silver stars into puddles
and throwing shadows at roaches
I wait patiently for my not-quite-charming prince to drive up
in his silver-armoured vehicle
and take me away.

I was being lazy again, but I wasn’t thinking of you until
the movie ended and I was left with the sound of
someone else’s happiness and someone else’s name.
I couldn’t help but notice how the colors blended to form
the memory of a café with eyes hanging from the ceiling by strings
and your eyes sparkling in the light.
I fell in love with you when you sang something I had hoped was for me
but whether or not it was I never asked.
The lyrics you sang were foreign to me and the thoughts you provoked
were lost upon my ears.
Too busy to listen I was mesmerized by your smile
never fading under the glare of fluorescents or in
the presence of my unabashed stare.
You left me happily confused in the front seat of my car
as you blew a kiss and waved goodbye.

I wonder if you still call me beautiful.

It’s midnight now and I want to punch walls
because I have to make everything complicated.
I’m more confused than ever and more angry than confused
and more than anything I’m still in love with who you are and what we were.
I wish I could talk to you but there’s too much you could find;
I’m not the same girl you fell in love with eight months ago.
There’s less of me here now and more reasons to hate me
and upon my shoulders more of the ever-present unhappiness
I’ve become more masochistic about carrying.

I wonder if you found someone better.

I hated myself then and because of that
I hated you for loving me.
The closer we grew the more I couldn’t accept your seventeen years
and the way you seemed to know that everything would be okay.
I hated your optimism and the way you made me happy
and I hated myself for hating you.
I didn’t make sense and I don’t make sense
because I miss you despite how I felt then.
My restless mind couldn’t stop looking for reasons to condescend;
everything I dislike about you is a lie.
I wanted nothing more than to tell you I still loved you,
but I couldn’t, and I shouldn’t.
In that hour I wanted to make you love me again and
I wanted to be in your arms.

I wonder if you ever think of me.

Someday I’ll find that movie you lent me and I’ll watch it again.
It’ll be like loving you, and I’ll feel your presence next to me
even though you’d be ignorant completely of my thinking of you.
In the night I’ll talk to the stars and it’ll be like whispering to you
and only the window will know how pathetic I am.
The world is crumbling like stale dessert
falling in pieces at my feet, but only in my head.
I keep over-thinking everything and my brain can’t take it anymore
and I just want to curl up in your embrace to your philosophy that
everything is going to be okay.
I wouldn’t believe you and I’d probably end up ruining things on my own,
but it’s moments of perfection like that one I strive to encounter.

I wonder if you’re still awake.

It’s getting late now and I’m still naked between
the sheets and consciousness.
I’ll wake up later today and maybe I’ll remember this.
My dreams might consist of you making me feel happy again
or maybe you’ll finally reject me.
In any case I hope you haven’t written a song about how much
I’ve messed up yet.
I’m sure you will someday but give me some time to get used to
the side of you that’s moved on.
Until then I’ll dream about cake and music and everything else we loved
when we loved each other then.

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.

I am going to show you just exactly what I mean when I say
Get away from me,
and just exactly what I mean when I say
Never show your face again.

You don't even have to ask, because I am going to tell you
You're a worthless pig,
and there won't be any questions left.
Your head is empty inside.

My dear, it's all so simple and painfully plain, you see
I want you to touch me;
I'm a slave to my hormones
*and I'm sorry I hurt you so.

My life
stretches before me like a
wide, fallow field.

I could plant seeds--
watch them grow
and someday have a field
which thrives;
or

I could light it
on fire.