an accidental intimacy is committed
between the right-now me
and the me-a-few-minutes-ago
as i slip onto my body,
(made cold by the air of the room,)
the warmest shirt i have ever felt,
soft and hot with the heat of
my own body
that i had already forgotten.

two me's converge, here.
i wrap my arms around myself.

i forgive my old self for all he has done to me
yesterday
because look what he would do for me
today,
he would keep himself warm
so that one day he would be cold
so that one day i could pick this hot shirt up
and wear it.

we waltz, we dance,
until the heat calms under the fan,
and then we are just one man
and i catch myself missing him.

taking the trash out one night,
i begin to fantasize about my own disappearance.

with the way it's raining, loud against the
metal of the house,
of the car,
of the little, singing bud in my ear,
i think to myself,
i don't think anyone would have seen this coming.

i find my place between the mazda and the bins,
walk there to the beat of this song which sounds
so much like an insistentlyapproaching bootfall,
and the bag is heavy as i swing it up and in,
and i return inside for the second.

right, the second.

i think about the documentary after i'm gone,
when they do the re-enactment.

and he walked inside again, mom will say and
dab at her eyes, for the second bag. i saw him, saw him go.

out of focus, the false me will wooshslowmotion with
a grocery bag of scraps around her and out the door
and then he will be gone forever
and he will have been taken so much for granted
and he will have incredible ratings.

this bag is smaller.
it takes no effort to toss,
and i latch the lid of the bin closed
with bungee rope like needy restraints
and i slip through the gate,
unfollowed,
close it behind me,
untaken,
up the steps beneath the awning which shouts
with rain,

and when i enter the house,
it is empty and sleeping
and dark and nothing.
there is no one to miss me in here.

(suddenly, very presently,
very cosmically aware of my
body,)

i find myself upset about
the prospect, the
inexpressible and
inescapable fact,
that as i use what i have,
it will disappear.

what an awful
thing to say.
i look at my hands.

i will have to
ration, i think.

i sit, i look
at these hands,
present and
cosmic.

i guess i just
can't love anything
anymore, i think.

i wiggle my fingers
and they fade.

yeah, i guess that's
what that means.

it's been cloudy for so long,
she thinks, as her head falls back,
squinting up at the tear in the sky,
she almost doesn't recognize the city
without its hat on.

does woman love woman
on the same floor,
or is it merely that
men get to their knees
and place themselves beneath
and weep about the sensation of
being beneath,
so low that they feel below the floor,
being beneath,
and does man love man
still on this floor,
still lower-than,
still on his knees,
or do they have their own floor,
do they have their own world,
do they love each other
with the beauty that
they prescribe onto
the girls, the girls,
the girls in heels,
so above,
or do they love each other
competitively,
flattening themselves,
killing themselves,
proving they will be smaller
for their fellow, but greater,
taller, safer,
stronger, realer
prettier man?

crescent nail between bottom teeth,
weak enough to bend with the tongue
and fidget with until fracturing
into something invisible
and perfectly sized to swallow.

it picks things off its body
to feed itself with.

its cells, its scabs,
its nails, its spots,
its hands, its eyes,
its touch, touch,
touch, touch, touch,
searching for so long,
for so long, it says,
and gropes the corners of the room
feeling across the floor,
through the dust, tracing grooves of wood,
for something important.

it picks things off its body until there's
nothing left to search with.

it wants a friend, and it wants more

and i want more than more than more than that.

i spill the words like coins into the couch cushions.

you look at me.

i say, hello,
in that way that people say hello when they
really need an answer now,
before panic, ideally,
before regret.

you look at me.

you look at me.

you look at me.

is anybody in there?

is anybody in there? i joke,
because i'm joking now
because that is how to salvage things
or, at least, it used to be,
pretend it's humor,
pretend it's a misunderstanding,
pretend it's anything other than what it is,

but you're grabbing my face
and your nails are sharp
and you're pulling me into you like limp cloth
and my hands are out to the sides like limp cloth

and you're calling me
idiot, idiot, idiot
and i'm saying
sorry, sorry, sorry
and i feel the metal of my cents start to warm
under the bodies we've got