waking up
is like
coming up for air -

but after you take
that first breath,
youre ready
to go back
under.

What a Disney shape
life is no circle
life has corners
for hiding
and pointy bits
for stabbing
not sure what shape
that is
maybe
a sharpened triangle.

The shirtless poet,
he writes on the fourth floor.
Corner of Bedlam and Squalor.
He’s running two experiments:
Ingesting only whiskey and
texting only ex-girlfriends.
He keeps a journal.
The title is
The Dishonest and the Deceased.
He’s seven days and forty-one pages in.
He’s sent 63 images of both himself and
empty bottles.
Three different women have shared his bed,
and each subsequent morning departed
with a similar sentiment: this never happened.
He’s drank ten liters, placed the empty bottles
on top of the cabinets. Proof. Yeah, I’ve been drinking.
I guess you can tell, he said. I’ve got friends.
Just haven’t seen them in a while.
He said he’s getting closer to the center.
Of what? Woman No. 2 asked.
Of myself.
I wouldn’t do that. Whatever you do.
It’ll help my.
Don’t do that.
My art.
This isn’t art.
I am art.
You’re drunk.
I can remember the first time.
I’m starting to.
What does.
Nothing.
You’re leaving.
No. Well.
The first time. Your grandma’s shed. 2007, 2008.
I’ve got work in.
I remember the smells.
The morning, she said.
The dew, the grass, the sweet wind.
Please.
Your husband’s no ******* poet.
I.
Let me remind you how poets love.

The air conditioner hiccuped.
A taxi door slammed outside.
A helicopter dipped past Squalor.
Through the window a beam of light.

But this never happened.
This never happened, he said.

I jot down my thoughts of you on any pieces of paper I can find,
My thoughts like these papers, loose leaf and wild, somehow only further our bind,
I search for words that purge and lessen the urge to reach our and tell you "I miss you",
Because you're fine without my lips, my tongue, or my kiss & they say don't go back to what hurt you.

But ******* do I miss you.

I miss you in the simplest of moments when alone with my heartbeat I sigh,
You showed me such beauty and reached into my soul and now that you're gone I just cry,
Cry for what we had, and for what we could have been,
I'm sure now that loving you was my very greatest sin.

So I write down on parchment the words I'll never say and alone with my memories I sigh,
& so I'll wait for the day when I can wake up and say it's not in your arms I wish to lie.

I'm too tired and too weak
From carrying all these worries
About things that may go wrong
Or things that never happened at all
I only have the will to take steady steps
Because my conquered failures hold me up

I'm too tired and too weak
I've lost my will to even breathe
Due to all the useless talking I do
And the inhaling of nothing I retain
I only now have the will to exhale
All the sweet moans I've swallowed whole

I'm too tired and too weak
To find the will to live the mundane
And excite flames from ashes as before
Or feed from the dull light in the dark
I only now continue this tired heartbeat
Because someone out there is feeding it life