These days, there’s a whole lot more than
a telephone wire separating us.
Blame yourself, you were beautiful.
I cannot handle such intensity in
small doses, like hard shots in tiny glasses.
That sort of proof just finds
me spilling my insides on the floor
of some rich fool’s apartment
in the lonely 7th district.
He came on too strong
I said ok, but no
Call me a cab
I’m no longer sad and he won’t make me happy.
So I’m leaving if it’s only his hands that are open.
I feel as if I left my old mind
backstage in the concert
of a spring that tried too hard
to be a winter.
I didn’t say goodbye,
it just left.
& I don’t miss it,
that season where I played the pilot fish.
The endless rain and grey skies
kept us all trapped in boxes,
well above & well beneath
the sidewalks that almost
seemed to cry.
I drank my weight in liquid
to keep it from spilling out of my eyes.
From a bird’s eye,
I suppose the streets bled together
like last night’s make-up does
on a Puritanical ******’s face
when she swallows horror and shame
at 8 am, riding the train home.
Her throat burns and the line
just keeps on buzzing.
You can’t play with fire and not get burnt.
I thought myself the Phoenix,
but I was blind.
What you ingest, you expulse.
Indeed, in the end, it was me who retched all the ashes
I once said I was melancholic
and knew black was the best color
because I thought it held depth.
But there weren’t ever any holes, just shadows
dancing to a dreary song that
I never really even wanted to sing.
I let it sing me, nonetheless.
So life goes on.
I crawl forth.
You fold and move on.
The past falls asleep inside of our skulls.
I still see a thousand faces when I dream,
but now that’s enough for me.