My couch,
Is death,
And avoidance is a second language,
Ask me do I speak it?
Conjoined twins,
Of misery and manipulation,
No calls,
Only cushions and customer's custom complaints,
From tomorrow,
The phone wont ring,
So I'll stay down this road,
Listening to headlines and headlights
Sing,
Moody music dwelling,
Where the lies and shame met in between,
Cut the cue, end the scene

The stage has been rebuilt,
We talked like teenagers,
And you told me that I've changed,
But the same,
Still that same number,
No more gap,
But your smile still kills,
Pain with palendromes,
We were here before,
And so again we,
Our fighting saying goodnight,
Street lamps in different cities,
Static.

I'm just fine,
Playing my part,
My mainstream maybe different,
But
Obsession has been overcame,
By the rising tide of a smile,
If the teleprompting signs shine through,
Meanwhiles and meditations
What can I do,
Except hope I'm reading,
The
Right
Script,

The couch,
It asks,
Where have you been?
I set down another,
chip.

As we sit down to our dinners,
as we open our romance books,
people die.

We sip our water;
their guts spill open.
We study our notes;
their planes crash.

We live;
they die.
We breathe;
they suffocate.

We are testaments to chance,
to luck, to possibility.

We are not products of God.

We are blind goats trotting on our path
before we perish, suddenly,
and vanish into death.

I'M MAKING nachos in your toaster oven. The chips fall in the pan without a problem. Beans, evenly distributed (if I do say so myself.) Salsa- good to go. Then the cheese. Generic brand shredded cheese blend. I dangle my (washed) fingers into the zip-lock bag, grab a generous pinch and rain mild cheddar down on my gourmet meal. And I feel the tears building. "No," my conscious scolds, "you will not cry over shredded cheese." I add another pinch for flavor, then another to assert dominance. I slide the pan into the tiny oven- triumphant! But the next task breaks me. I freeze when I try to adjust the heat setting. I hear your voice so clearly, like you're still calling from the next room: "you have to press the TOAST button, it cooks much faster."  The tears start to roll. I think about how excited you were when cheese bubbled perfectly- "just a little brown, ever so slightly crispy." We would joke about your persnickety preferences, likely a product of your superior taste. Of course, you would have appreciated anything I made for you, but it was always better when the dish matched the idea in your head...when I made it like you would have made it (if you were only well enough to cook for yourself again.) In the present, I poke the TOAST button and flee the kitchen as to not cry in front of the smothered chips. I sit on the sofa and break down, gasping in childish sobs. "I miss her," I wail to an empty house. Warm tears coat my cheeks in the air-conditioned room. I feel so small. I feel so foolish for crying over stupid, little things. I feel so... so... A bell dings in the kitchen. I wipe my sleeve across my face and traipse back to the toaster. Hand into oven mitt, mitt onto pan, pan onto table. I grab the plastic tubs of sour cream and guacamole from the fridge and a spoon from the drawer that sticks a little when you try to open it. I pick the non-wilted bits off the head of lettuce and rinse them under the faucet. I finish the recipe. I pull out a chair. I sit down to nachos for one.

I don't think about it any more
I take out the trash
noting
Sticks caught in the crotch of a tree
The wind does what the wind does
breaks weaker branches down
does not care where
it leaves
them
on its invisible way

Days do what the days do
they don't count themselves
worthy as they go
to release
the afternoon
to evening—
an artless
emptying
to a low spot
where tears tend to pool
if I'd let them down

“You know,
in that low spot
out there...?”
Where it's hard to see
Where its hard to care?

They take heart
out
divide it by energy
for sadness—
I haven't got

Watched the clock go round
wipe out my little plans
with relentless hands

...and I never got dressed today

"But what if we're wrong?"
It was silent
But her thoughts echoed around in my head as we laid on top of her pickup truck
I swatted at the eighteenth mosquito chewing on my leg
I don't want this to be love

We were tangled up in the acoustic music they play on the radio on Sunday mornings
She was trying to dream up something clever to write about
And I was pretending I could learn to play guitar through osmosis,
As if blending myself in with the harmonies, finding her in every lyric, and sheer willpower would give me wings or at least magic guitar hands

She set the alarm, checked it over and over
She was not going to be late for her first day
I told her I'd be asleep when she got home, she told me she knew
I told her to wake me up

I wasn't looking for perfect
Perfect really only applies in first year physics courses
After that, we learn to fall in love with "rough around the edges" or "unique" or "unfinished"
As if their life is a puzzle that we need to complete
Just so you know, it isn't

She bought me breakfast and dropped me off
She used to tell me she loved me, but I know she didn't
She does now, so she doesn't have to say it anymore
When I said, "love," before, I didn't really mean it
Not like I mean loving the garden on the balcony of her apartment or thunderstorms in May
Even if I was a puzzle that she completed (and I'm not saying that I am), we didn't need any glue to fit perfectly