empty words
pass as winter wind
sapping strength

I take the remnants of my
childhood OCD,
and I put it to
hard work at my
custodial arts job.
Janitor to be PC.
All the initials make
my BP rise.

And the pounding
of the basketballs attack 
my eardrums in
a mad staccato
beat.
The blue toilets, and
the chemicals assuage
my nasal cavity.

Leggings and tight shorts
get my Nabokov mind calling
******, come, let me
touch your pink flower.
I'm wet now at
the head; can they see
it through my pants?

How many times did
I touch the light switch?
Do I need to blink
my eyes two more times?
Ah, if I could only
swim to heaven in
the blueness of the sterile
chlorine in
that big cerulean pool...
wash this
wretched disease 
off, once and for all.

That bubble of a moon is 
playing peek-a-boo behind
the wispy night sky.
Confirming to me
everyone's lunacy.
Words stick to the
roof of my mouth
like peanut butter.
It could have been 
a better world,
I should have been a
better man.

January snowflakes
are like guilt falling from
the sky.
little frozen starfish...
cold and raw on 
the soul, and tongue.

  

.

You were born near the warm ocean,
grew up around there,
With your clear acrylic smile
and sun-kissed blonde hair

I, the winter cold
More north than I can remember,
We met that day you visited,
a brisk chill, that December

We drank and danced,
while the years passed over
Argued and grew apart,
our greatest fears, now sober

My memories of you, once treasured
Now, faded
as sun deprived lands complain,
Forever, jaded