the ways in which things happen
are like guerrilla warfare.
the future would not be
itself, that title would not be not born
if we could predict its nature.

this is not going nowhere.
I have a reason for everything I'm saying,
I swear.
you were never patient
and I still cannot spend a second
without having second thoughts.

we are always in the wrong.
it's the wrong place,
the wrong time,
the wrong person--
the wrong person you're kissing
in the wrong bathroom stall,
the wrong way in which
they're touching your hair.

then again, the word "wrong"
is subjective.
if you were at all suspicious
you would be writing poems as conspicuous
as mine.
but you don't write at all.
you were all edges, no art;
nothing tore you apart.

I always thought the timing was wrong,
but now I think it irrelevant.
I still hope that you knew what I meant
when I said "please don't."
and I have a clock whose hands stopped moving
around the time that yours did.
the second hand still quivers
it makes a ticking sound
through every night.
if this was the wrong time,
I could not tell it from the right.