the first thing i did
when i got a new car
was drive past your place.
muttering that there was
no other way to go,
no route better,
to get me where i want to go.

i refused to look to the side,
keeping my eyes on the road,
and a lie in my throat.
but i felt your apartment slide by.
like a blade of a finger sliding down
a long stretch of thigh.

you haven't lived there in ages
and i haven't sat on that balcony in twice the number,
but driving by brings you closer somehow.
brings your blurred memory into focus.

you're happy with a someone,
i'm content with a whomever,
and we haven't been us in ages,
but,
despite all,
i tell myself,
there is no better way to go,
no better route to take,
to get me where i want to go.

its four a.m. and the old man's ghost is with me as i pour through his work and he paws at my hem.

his phlegmy gravel whispers at me and i hear,  "cool down baby, the ink on the page is dead as a squirrel on the highway."

i read on and i feel his hand on my thigh and his warm beer dribbling on my dress as he promises verse that's all kinds of alive, if i want it.

he is old and slouched, used to younger women dazzled by words or of age ****** who will pay him mind in exchange for his last wrinkled ones,
but i am neither.

i leave his ghost where it lays
and i don't bother asking him to read my work.
it will live with or without him
even if it never sees the sun,
because sooner or later one of them will rise,
and i will have no time for the ghosts of old men.

the woman.
she is no more than
a lump of formless clay,
pure, vast, and unfiltered potential.

he was a songwriter.
promising to sand, shape, and polish.
skimming through her journal and jotting down
shorthand versions of a heart.

he was a stressed money maker
who wanted practical usefulness.
a pillar of support that got only the pleasure
of being part of a palace.

he was a writer.
who got her drunk and scribbled notes as she talked
and called it writing together
after the fact.

he was a teacher.
who only wanted to show her what she could be,
if only
she let him...

from cup,
to vase,
to ashtray,
to bust.

the clay cracks and varnish is sometimes chipped away
fire and tempered shell crushed to dust
only to be reused again,
as flour on a forming table.

the he in these landscapes is not to blame
for readily available medium
calling out for artists hands.

sometimes clay just wants to be clay,
and it has the right to decide,
when it feels like
being something more.

the saddest part of what i'm feeling
is knowing that it has very little to do with you.

you are simply the catalyst.
and no one can blame
a single raindrop
for the floods.

i didn't like you as much as i told myself i would one day,
and my heartbreak is not at the loss of you,
but more so,
the monotonous trend you find yourself a part of.

you are one of many
who say that they are
in for penny and pound alike;
only to get cold feet,
and decide,
from that pale blue that **** keeps falling from,
that the individuals in the royal we
are probably better off
not becoming a unified
us.

the heady wine blushes
pink rose splashes,
spilling from their fluted glasses as they laugh.
they, the shrieking, squealing, piglets of youth personified,
staining their dresses, making the skin of their necks sticky sweet.

girls of their prime,
strolling nonchalantly into woman,
laughing loud and unafraid of the
scowling, folded, creased faces of
old men having coffee
shaking heads and papers
grumbling about peace and quiet.

"Peace! Yes we too seek a little piece grandfather!" the tall blonde of the three trumpets

"Or perhaps, not such a little piece sister." a moon eyed brunette grins.

they let out another deafening ring of laughter,
pulling at each other,
gripping tight to their youth
in the face of
disapproval.

i can't help but smile.
and root them on silently.
be loud,
we've all had plenty of peaceful mornings.
you remind us of the we that we were
when we were you.

the only reason i kept up
with the sport at all,
was to prove a point
to the one who got away.

I walk around heartbroken most of the time.
A sticky glob of pitch resting in my chest,
warm enough to slowly spread,
but cooling fast and cementing.

Everyone seems to walk around so smoothly,
and it hurts to know most of them feel the same.
But,
they're silent like me,
and I'm silent like them,
and we all walk around with big, dumb smiles on our faces.

My heartache will **** me one day,
and I've accepted that fact.
Love of any kind is not guaranteed or owed
and even if you die surrounded by loved ones,
you still end up dying
alone.