One eye staring at me,
       The other eye staring into space.
Half a mind on my words,
       The other half on groceries,
                                 life,
                          bills.
And I'm dying on the inside,
         Because I forgot why I should care
That his attention
                                  is Elsewhere.

I don't remember, any more,
The exact shape of your hands
As I held them in mine,
Caressed them,
Memorized the length of your fingers,
The depth of your calluses.

I don't remember, any more,
Exactly your height, how much
Taller than me
You were, where
My head rested on your chest
When you held me tightly close.

I don't remember, any more,
Your scent, when we lay together
Creating our own
Magic rhythm,
Matching our heartbeats as we
Touched the sky, together.

I don't remember, any more,
The sound of your voice, calling
My name as though
It were a song
Within itself, a precious treasure
You valued with all your being.

And I don't remember, any more,
The color of your eyes, the shape
Of your lips,
Only...
How your eyes crinkled at the corners
And your laugh, as you told me,

"I love you."

To the creator somewhere above all our heads,

they (we) call you
GOD

G   osh
O   h
D   on't we all wish

that we really knew
who/how/what you are
so
we could send you letters, with all the stamps you need, and we could ask all these
?  ?questions?          ? that float                                   ?                      ?                      ?         ?                  ?
float and attach to our finger tips              ?                    ?                        ?­                             ?                    ?
we use whatever we can to smudge it across sur(faces)
like we spilled ink on our hands and we can't get it off
                                        get it off
instead we just end up living with it, learning from it, painting with it
almost as if we believe that we can be artists who
paint in black and white
but there is lots of color too, all settled in between the letters between the
lines
lines and lines of these questions that we try to ask
or get rid of
                                        get rid of
because you know we all just want to make living a little less complicated, a little less
covered in smudges
always trying to make the perfect picture
Perfect.
Like heaven
Heaven
creating our own idea of the word here
just in case we don't find it
later on


I don't really know what to say to
all this air
what I say, well
it just shoots across and hits the wall
smack
waiting, stuck, like a post-it note waits on a desk
I think i'll peel it off and re-read
make sure I meant to say it aloud
then try harder
see, the thing is I ran out of stamps
but that doesn't mean I can't still address a letter and let it
float

GOD

G   osh
O   oh
D    on't we all wish for


more

You don't have to worry
I won't be here long
I only stopped by to grab a few things
Before I go

Nothing has changed, has it?
Oh, but who am I trying to fool?
I only said that because I was disoriented
By how different it all is, the furniture you've moved
I don't suppose it could have been any different
Had I hung around to watch you move it
We both know I couldn't have helped you
I wasn't strong enough and I don't mind admitting that
I only wish you had understood
That you had known just how much I liked the loveseat against the west wall
That you hadn't held it against me, my weakness, I couldn't lift those things
I didn't want to lift them and maybe that's something you didn't get
Of all the things you could have gotten
Had you not known how cheaply I could be had
You have no grasp whatsoever of Feng Shui
Or most likely it's my own inability to appreciate it
Yes, that's the truth, when you get down to it

I dreamed I saw you
Standing at an open window
4 stories high, looking down at a flag waving in the breeze
Leaning forward slightly
My gut clenched in fear
I felt worry like a strong breeze
Pushing me toward you
Stopped by some invisible responsibility
"If you love somebody, set them free"
That stupid song started playing in my head and I froze in my tracks
Even as you leaned forward even more
I thought
The possibility that you would fall outweighed
The likelihood that you would not
In that realization I saw what was wrong with me
Just like the time when I was 6 years old, playing in the park
Dad was at the picnic table playing cards with his friends
(That's what they liked to do)
I climbed up to the top of a very high slide
All by myself, no one to help me, no big deal
But he saw me
He felt the same breeze, almost like an East wind ushering in a thunderstorm
He stood up, a reflex, an instinct
And he watched with the same tingle of fear I felt in my dream
With every bit of strength within him he stayed
He was a real worrier, yet he overcame that worry
Just
Long
Enough
To see me laughing as I made my way down that slide
I love him for that
It was many, many years after that I finally came to understand
How essential are the words:
"Be Careful"
So that's what I said to you
Watching you bend over even more
Forgiving myself for being so worried
Because if you had fallen
I would have lived the rest of my life
Wondering why I didn't jump out after you

Those last days were kind of rough, weren't they?
The fights over who kept what and what was whose
The resigned silence
Reading each others minds, or so we thought
We might as well have been illiterate for our ability
Blame cast in every direction like fiery arrows deflected
By shields of indifference
I won't say I'm the innocent one
I won't be here for long
I only came to grab a few things
Soon be gone

This is not for you
Think what you will, I know you do
This is not even for me
Written, forgotten, that's how it must be
My codes are easily deciphered
Your cryptograms are broken
Not as clever, either one of us, as we thought
So it's better to be forthright
This place is so unfamiliar
It's impossible to believe I lived here for so long
It's yours now
If I could only ask for the DVD of "The Truman Show" beneath the books in "our" bedroom
I know you always thought of it as yours
But...

So now I'll be going
Hope I haven't kept you too long
I got what I came for
Turn away, love, I'm gone

In an instant,
darkness overcomes everything.
The silence is deafening.
Fear sets in,
My heartbeat quickens.
It's all I can hear in the night.
Click. Click. Click.
It's like a time bomb.
The clicks turn into ticks.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
It's only a matter of time
before I combust.

She kicked me out of bed first thing in the morning
I didn’t even have time to make us breakfast
Not that she was hungry
She seemed satiated enough
So I left
and later met a friend for lunch

He was kicked out of bed first thing in the morning
He didn’t even have time to make his new lover breakfast
Not that he would have eaten
He seemed satiated enough
So my friend left
And he met me for lunch

Our attempts at fuckery find us
Not too far from one another
It is the distance of a coffee table in a diner
After we make our way to the wayside again

We both have water
And it washes our pallets clean
Of the liquor
And the cigarettes
And her mouth
And his mouth

Still lingering a little bit bitter
So we sip some more

These are sheets we leave behind so stained
That you hope the passion will stay
Until there are so many it doesn’t matter anymore
These one night stands will never feel any less *****

The spots of sweat and memory
That still won’t wash out
So many
They look like constellations
As the sheets hang to dry

I imagine they trace out your body
Not just your body
Any body

So generic now
It makes The Shroud of Turin
Look the aftermath of Babylon’s midnight bustle

These are the ways that love leaves you
Hanging you wet to dry
Stained and *****
And equally alone again

Forgive me for the way my mind wanders
I am still with you
I just didn’t want to *** yet

These are the ways my body leaves me
And then you
The morning after I accidentally told you I love you
Even though we just met

I have found and lost love
Enough times to secure my spot in hell by now
I mean
My fear of death his hell enough
To love you as much as I can

Forgive my neuroticism
As I leave again
Finding myself where my fuckery leaves me

At lunch
With a friend
Who is equally awkward
As we make way to the wayside again