She’d spread like clockwork,
Her words
And far from
Those
Ample
Black stockinged
Legs –

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

She’d came to me,
Me and alone
With my return to home,
A bottle,
A thought or two
And
Solitude
Prior the her –

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

And when three came to
Be,
And to “be” meant to
Close,
Followed soon,
Our kiss
Amid a mid-July
Parking lot,
She’d retreat –

“I’m not going to sleep with you,”

And retract

“Take me home,”

I did.
And when it came time,
That special moment,
Few and far for some,
Every other day for
Others,
I snuck away to the stars,
Slid beneath a pale green tree,
Took a swig from the swiped
Beer
And imagined myself having
Just dodged a bullet.

A group of friends,
A gathering,
Overlapped
And away,
Persists
Where all know all
With,
"You think you know me?"
In the all too honest background.

An answer to the above –
Our assumed empathy exists,
When truthfully
It truthfully eludes -
"You think I know you?"

"I"
Or rather the
"We" in the "here"
And "now" -
A lesser form,
And not our truest,
Hides the "real" and deep within.

Each has a pain,
Relatively at least
And perhaps our only concrete notion
Of who the "other" is.
A non-biological truth
Founded upon
A shared organic ancestry
Where
The skeletons in the closet
Translate as -
Lacks of ambition,
Ambiguous futures (at best),
Swept away addictions
And tears in the night,
Torture.

We shed our daily frown,
For a fake smile,
A facsimile
And play for the pains we do not share.
It’s a place
Where the hidden words,
The bad words,
The blasphemous words
Slip -
"Help me!"
And just as quickly
Retract -
"Never mind."

We hide it deep
And hide it well,
Because it's when it's
Shared
That we become what we try to
Avoid -
Attached
And in fear of losing
Each other.

Thus remains –
The ******* of perception.
As we hold to this
State of confused,
Or concussive,
Happiness.
And only later will we all cry,
As we've all gone home
And alone.