Dedicated to the one who'd turned the table.*

I spent two hours
Trying to make you savor me,
When I can’t stomach myself.
I can abuse myself though
And refuse myself, recuse myself,
But all I’d ask is that you
Hold my hand, ensued the chaos,
I promise – I won’t let go.

I spent the entire next day,
Apologetic…embarrassed,
And a little more lost –
Faded further, from the night before,
The now-embedded moments,
Slivers broken skin,
In increments,
And never quite whole.

So I spend tomorrow today,
Anxious, afraid, eye on door,
An ear for the phone, and all for you,
Entirely, when you’d forgotten me,
And I’d hoped to forget me too;
So ensues the conundrum,
A wish that it’s all in my head,
And that you really do care.

Truths be told, I’m usually the fog
That lifts and later leaves come morning.
Off-scripted, you’d beaten me to the punch.
You were the one gone far before dawn,
No name, no number, no, “nothing,”
Yet more, “bountiful,”  than ever,
And maybe it because, the “empty’s,”
Actually me, the awkward, “other.”

Mao’s on the wall.
Mao’s on the cat,
Mao’s the cat,
And Mao’s on the truck.
Mao’s tucked text.
Mao’s still the cat
Mao’s on the hat;
And Mao’s rendered stencil.
Mao draped in red,
Mao embalmed vacuum,
Mao smiling dirt
And Mao in slaughter;
The good, the bad,
The, “godly,” great
The ’89 slaughtered, ugly,
And as putrid as the scholars
Being spat upon.
So Mao’s tempered glass
And Mao’s tempered solemn,
Surrounded a spectacle,
When I, Mao and I,
Author and other, other and
Away, gaze eye-to-eye with,
“Before.”
His are closed,
Mine, unblinking.
I think of heroes,
I, “tinker,” butchers,
And ponder,
“Just,” and to the right of,
Right,” what is, “right?”
Would he have been?
Would she have been?
Would I have been?
“Right?”
Just what the hell is,” right?”

Went to the barber today,
          Just to feel a razor at my neck.
So to, skipped a crosswalk,
          Just to hear a horn.
I hopscotched the tracks,
          But the yard’s been empty years.
So then tried the bridge,
          When the wind’d never come.
Tomorrow’ll be lucky,
          That’s what I tell myself.

That’s what I tell myself.

I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
I still shave
And later scratch the burn atop
My, “apple.”

I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
I wake up. I go to work.
I hate copy-machine jams.
And I hate my boss.

I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
In China, poets often drink.
I drink,
Therefore I’m in China.

I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
Which doesn’t excuse,
It creates my, “excuse,”
At the least, to wander.

And I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
If I weren’t, I’d never sleep;
I’d never live, never dream,
And’d never know you.