We can sit and listen
to cello concerto's
for hours with no one
to bother us,
and I think her
lipstick is
one-of-a-kind.
I wish more people
wore gloves like
she did
and all this smoking
is giving me wrinkles.
I'm too young for those
I tell myself,
but the guest
who tans too much
says otherwise.
Her skin is painfully
taught and could
rip apart at
any given second.
The book was slung
off the shelf without
a moment's notice and
now it's really starting
to bleed onto the
bed we never slept in
and God ******
if I don't still sleep
in your t-shirt.
My soul is too old
for love.

It is later than late,
the simmered down darkness
of the jukebox hour.

The hour of drunkenness
and cigarettes.
The fools hour.

In my dreams,
I still smoke, cigarette after cigarette.
It's okay, I'm dreaming.
In dreams, smoking can't **** me.

It's warm outside.
I have every window open.
There's no such thing as danger,
only the dangerous face of beauty.

I am hanging at my window
like a houseplant.
I am smoking a cigarette.
I am having a drink.

The pale, blue moon is shining.
The savage stars appear.
Every fool that passes by
smiles up at me.

I drip ashes on them.

There is music playing from somewhere.
A thready, salt-sweet tune I don't know
any of the words to.
There's a gentle breeze making
hopscotch with my hair.

This is the wet blanket air of midnight.
This is the incremental hour.
This is the plastic placemat of time
between reality and make-believe.
This is tabletop dream time.

Stop showing
You love me
A little at a time.

Stop saying
You care
Bit by bit.

Stop keeping
Me here
For tiny pieces of time.

Because I need
All of you
Not piece by piece.

I love
All of you
Not just some parts of you.

So love all of me
All the way
All the time.

Or let all of me go
All at once
For good.

Next time you tell me to go away
I'll show you just how good I am at disappearing
You just haven't stuck around long enough for the
vanishing act
You have the audacity to
say my name tastes like filth
But have you ever thought
that the source of your uncleanliness
was born somewhere in your lung's
and made its way up your throat
I can taste that
when I kiss you
No wonder everything turn's to grit
in your mouth
You have the stones
to say
you're an insomniac
But there's a difference between
not wanting to sleep
and not being able to
And your hands wouldn't shake so much
if you didn't drink so much coffee
and you wouldn't look so tired
If you smiled once in a while
and your breath wouldn't taste
or smell
or look
like ****
if you didn't smoke
100 packets a day.
So you have the audacity to tell me
"Well, baby the truth hurts."
In that southern drawl
With eyes so animated
I wonder which movie star you're impersonating now
After four months of Kurt Cobain
I've had enough of your angst and love letters
And I'd love to lay
my hands against your throat
and let you feel the threat
of life
draining away
But I know you would just smile
and rack your brain
for a quote from a movie you have stored somewhere
away

You make me think the most inappropriate thoughts
in the most appropriate times
You leave me stuck hiding blushes and suppressing sighs
I didn't understand what soft features were
until those teasing eyes locked into mine
and I wanted to reach out to close the distance
between my shivering frame and your hands
Was my expression as permissive as I felt
More , was my body beckoning as my thoughts were
I guess you must have heard me through the walls
for I found your body answering my unsaid mind calls
all of you down my neck , along my back
leg to leg , knees bent at the same place
there was a little dancing , so as to appear innocent
but your voice turned me around and we were face to face
your thumb gently up and down my palm
and I took you away , we parted from the crowd
tripping onto the cushions before the door clicked shut
the length of me folded into the length of you
and we continued our not so innocent dance
a pas de deux of our voices escaping
through the rise and fall of our molded bodies
pushing each other to the finish
yes , yes oh darling yes runs through me .