ship
sank
silently
in
a
silent
sea

hungry flowers bloom at night
wide and ripe as milk.

When you seek me out
and I say it's not happening
don't act out
of the passion of apathy.
What we long for
isn't what we have.
Don't let's find
the virility in sadness.
Not that there's
much risk of that...

You and I already
keep around enough baubles
to keep away the
loneliness.

Don't let's make
each other more
of the same.

turn the lights on
to this body in this night
flushed with anger
and eyes staring
into nonsense like
fog lights brightly blind
into which we dropped
a spirit deep
as into a bottomless well
and it fell into the darkness
yet can't be entirely lost
and stares back
out of the absurdity
the disordered emotions
and disproportionate flesh
around you one cat is awakened and
quietly crying, light on the white tiles
so you stand before your reflection
and trace *******
down the line of your center,
which in your fancy
seems a means of escape
but the inside will
never open up and be seen
or touched and you
can never quite give up

It's all
wide
awake.

That which you love
is right by your side,
every side.

And you
just have to find
the convoluted path
to that closest point.

It all depends on
releasing those painful thoughts
that come from sharp, straight
paths
too obvious to last.
And doing it as a habit so you don't keep getting lost
in the nearness that
seems so far.

It takes time but it's not
hard.

Being sleep deprived
is a lot like being drunk.
2. It's generally better
not to sleep with someone
who sells drugs.
3. If you don't want to have ***
say so early
and often.
4. It's vitally important
that his head is not too small.
5. Teeth too.
6. Frenzy and impatience are either fantastic
or not good at all.
7. Don't be too accepting and tolerant.
This will be mistaken as keen interest.
8. Some people are nice but not interesting.
They will not become interesting later.
9. If you're mainly looking for ***
have *** right away.
It's not going to make more sense
with time.
10. Some people have voracious, intriguing minds,
simply because they are enthusiastic about everything--
they enjoy but only endlessly consume.
11. I am not meant to play tennis.
12. Nor do I want to.
13. The long deprived are not looking for friends.
14. I am capable of incredible
self and shared delusion.
15. It's hard to say for sure what a messy home
represents, but it's not going to be anything good.
16. Don't be too accepting and tolerant.
I may mistake my own acceptance
for keen interest.
17. Don't overlook a multitude
of small dishonesties.
18. There is such a thing
as too much of a good thing...
and too little.
19. Don't encourage small feelings
if you would not want them
when, **** like, they have grown enormous
and tenaciously rooted
for little enough
reason.

You don't mind the lines quite.
You mind the times nobody saw your eyes without lines.
You mind the lovers you didn't have
and you mind some kinds you did.
You mind that worry lines came first and stayed.
You don't mind the age,
quite,
you mind the time that
merely passed.
You mind the friends that moved
far away and further, forgetting.
You mind the conversations never had.
You mind the days and nights passed without remark.
You mind the waiting gone unanswered, year after year.
You mind that your body didn't stretch out with adventure,
but with disuse.
You mind that quiet was a better choice than disaster.

You mind that you will change now
before you got to be yourself then.

Now you can take comfort that as the flaws slowly change
from flaws of youth to flaws of age
it will be a long time before anyone notices
because no one is paying attention to the little details

not any one of them.