You pause to tell me
"Fools rush in,"
then tilt a beer into your labret;
  a tiny clink and
 your long practiced swallows:
I tremble with the aliveness of the room
and the miles you've traveled
just to turn up my volume.

'This is the room one afternoon I knew I could love you/and from above you how I sank into your soul,' Jeff Mangum croons through the crackling speakers*

...similarly simple,
like the coyness of corner smiles,
I  am exposed
finally
  to your bedroom,
and the snug universe you've built within.

Cross-legged on your bed
I hear your nervous, careful stories.
Spoken into fidgeting fingers, silken wrinkled
bedsheets debauched and  re-washed--
your words fall into them so easily
like you've found  benevolence in their silence--
their softness as language.

Imbibing every ounce of you,
I wish to endure
like the canvases that span your wall.
But I dissolve back into winter
as you regain your right mind.
The ascending stairs creak
hungover and meek
like me

There isn't much sky
in this pallid, stale cocoon
no greens nor greys, no electric branches
searing fragile, barren walls.
But the heady, sagging scent of moisture
suggests a storm--
                                                         ­                                  yes, there was once me:
a turbid bloom, an opportunist
exhausting avidity in one overarching spill.
As I rolled through your gutters,
flippant and bleeding into everything,
you rose with the dryness of the day
and spoke of your immurement,
the feebleness of my mold and mildew.