I.
daffodils creep at the cusp of May
and your shadow glides beside them.
they want to know
why i do the things i do,
who casts the spell behind these symptoms.
they arouse with the purr of questions
and derail with the burn of exposure.
why do you leave through the front door
of even the most crowded bus
just to say "thank you" to the driver?
why are you crammed with receipts
when you are so afraid to spend?
why do you still drown in the cascades
of the one who did this to you?
why? i don't know why.
if i long for those places
punctuated with laughter,
why do i choose the last train car?



II.
we meet at a stairwell littered in the signs of a dying hour.
nothing.
you manufacture mysteries at the blinking of your eyes,
you unfold in sunny patterns at the dancing of your lips,
dangerous, but nurturing. yet still,
nothing.
i want to say that you are like a dream,
an assemblage of cells and concerns
into something more than what my reality can afford.
but instead, i only sigh, and you start to leave,
and you take your shadow with you,
your sleeve indulging in the gap swallowing mine.
nothing.
love, lust, loneliness--they are nothing
but the language of the human sigh.
the daffodils are nothing
but the symmetry i don't have access to.
May is nothing
but a crater behind April curtains.
and we are nothing but Pandora's pet,
the last on the list
of Aphrodite's errands --
a still life study of human beings.