Part One

Mercury is in retrograde.
And people who do not believe in astrology
Quake in their collective boots.
Mercury enters the living room and kicks the dog,
Flops onto your couch and tells you to get them whatever they need.
You listen, Mercury is, after all, in retrograde.
They will travel across the sky backwards,
Throwing off your life in all of their
Roman god of thieves glory,
Until you give them what they want.
Mercury switches between burning loved ones and freezing them,
With a sunrise and sunset sense of reliability.
With no atmosphere to keep themselves warm.
They don sweaters in July to hide their withering orbit
And even if mercury is in retrograde,
It seems they are not moving.

Part Two

Eris rotates the sun,
Brings an apple to a wedding party
She was never invited to
The apple reads, “To The Prettiest One”
And starts the first war among men.
And Eris claims she meant no harm.
Cries on her mother’s lap,
Aging a year every 88 days.
Her mother covers her in a cloak dark as night.
Her mother is the night.
Eris rotates, stares at Mercury,
Breathes Cigarette smoke deep into her own lungs,
Blows it in Mercury’s face.
Mercury is trying to quit
Eris does not care.
Eris wants to see Chaos.
Wonders why no one asked her who the stupid apple was for.
She thinks humans are stupid.
We are, she’s never wrong.
She dresses herself in her best to come see you at work
Every Sunday like a religion.
Baggy jeans, and a not so clean t-shirt,
Makes Mercury mad that she forgets the wig every time.
Mercury does not want to see the hair Eris has pulled out after every cigarette
Like a body count.

Part Three

Mars was born from pretty.
Yet he seems to be anything but pretty.
He’s going to war with everyone,
He burned a boys shoes once,
A boy who dared to love the solar system,
To accept the sun, and every planet and satellite
Like siblings.
Mars is fighting the stars,
He wants to land among them, and shoot all of them out like light bulbs.
Mars wants to protect his solar system from the stars,
From every boy.
To keep the sun burning for eternity.
Eris reminds him the sun will burn out, eventually,
And Mercury hides behind your couch.
Mars lashes out with the sun,
Breaks the sun’s knuckles off eris’s face,
Sets your carpet on fire.
Mercury starts to cry, notices the bruising on the sun,
Tries to patch it’s sunspots.

Part Four

Venus tries to mediate.
In all of her fifties house wife,
Goddess of beauty perfection.
She tries to keep the meteors from hitting all her sun-mates.
She is tired.
She wants to live in a kitchen in front of her bay windows
With her favorite book,
Watching the sea foam and hoping it with birth her a companion.
She can not handle having Eris burning the sun’s lungs,
Or Mercury wanting to die.
Or Mars being angry,
Much longer.
They set her Sunday best on fire.
A dress with petticoats and flowers.
Her white shoes she keeps perfectly polished for tea with her mother.
Venus dresses the sun in a matching dress made of silk,
And rubs rouge on its cheeks,
Like her own little baby doll
And cries over her own infertility.
Mercury consoles her,
tells her she might not meet her purpose
Of love, and ***, and motherhood,
But that they will love her at least.
Eris tells her “Who needs that crap?”
And flicks a cigarette out on her own arm.
Mars gets angry at her crying.
Slaps her with the sun.
Singes her perfectly smooth cheek.
She cries more.

Part Five

Mars storms out, burns your shoes again.
Eris lights up cigarettes like birthdays and lovers
Off of Mar’s fires,
Venus tries to put them out with her tears,
Her bay-window-kitchen-room-favorite-book-dreams
And her battered, childless body,
And Mercury falls further into retrograde.

I wanted to call you today.
I wanted to stand outside with a cigarette in my hand and your name on my lips.
I want your voice in my ears like it is a drug, and I’m withdrawal.
I am nothing but withdrawal these days.
I’m months from my last cigarette,
Weeks from my last craving
Too long since I last heard your voice.
I do not like to admit that I need you, because I shouldn’t.
I tell people of your wickedness,
Just to hear your name in the miles between us.
You have been the blade that has cut me too many times,
But I am left craving your steel.
Your pain.
I miss you.

I wanted to call you today.
I wanted to stand outside with a cigarette in my hand and your name on my lips.
I want your voice in my ears like it is a home, and I am lost.
I left town to escape you in the hallway
I moved to escape your memory in my bedroom
I wanted to go home today,
To return to my small town and curl up under your memory.
I miss my cigarettes
And I still miss your voice.
And your steel
And your pain.
I still miss you.

I called you today.
I wanted to stand outside with a cigarette in my hand and your name on my lips.
I wanted to hear my name on your lips, like it is a drug and  oh god am I withdrawal.
I wanted to walk the miles between us just to see you.
Instead, I called you today, outside of a gas station,
And I did not hold a cigarette,
I just held your name in my teeth,
I told you I still talk about you,
Just to hear your name.
I still write about you just to see you for a split second in my mind,
I still look at my door like you will show up.
I told you I am still months from my last cigarette,
And minutes from my last craving.
And you told me you were proud.
I wanted you to be forgiven and me forgiveness,
But I am not, can not, forgive you.
Because I do not want to forget you.
I want to hear your name on my lips every morning,
To wake to you every morning,
Despite your steel,
Your pain.
I want to miss you.