Sometimes lose track of the times I wished for more time

Doodling out the hours
And minutes
Become tiny emojis
Criss-cross, half-finished
Tic tac toe games
And I feel lost
Each box a reminder
Of these quarantine
Afternoons, and your name
Is always on my lips
Along with the words
I miss you

Am
I
Always
Going to
Feel
So
L
  O
     S
       T
?

1am thoughts drive me outside to the stars
the wet grass and night breeze remind me
it's not a bad world
it's not a bad life
it's just a bad night to stargaze
clouds litter the sky,
but somehow stars still peek through
clouds roll on
and somehow they unsteady me too
I could lay here for hours
in the uneasy silence of the night

a woman comes to me at 2:20am,
from across the world, asking if I am that cool jew,
occupant/son of the unholy hours when death and crucifixion,
them two old friends, are waving temptation with both hands,
never mentioning heaven, offering .99 cents of sanitized compliments,
which for a fifth rate amateur writer is revolutionary,
as close as you will ever come to global recognition

that woman says, yes! you’re that insufferable fool whose
suffering keeps us awake when he should be sleeping in the
half-death state, in the unholy hours, only reporting back
what he has seen across the borderline, in these times
when a thousand-die-a-day daily from suffering
that is uniquely human, a wracking medieval torture,
granting those viral messengers, slow extra pleasure

be nice to yourself for a change, write ‘bout what they want,
broken love and suicide, mundane pain, keep it plain, short!
easy stuff that sells records, making you not whisper words
never meant to be shared, the language of the unholy hours,
a dialect unique, that Google can’t quite rightly translate,
for not every vision is substitutable, suitable, rated G for babies, so,
keep it short like a miserable life that needs a prophecy to complete

48 hours ago thought I was infected, a glide path to rocky moon-smooth,
a landing where words unique, taken away, sealing your mouth with
tubed oxygen that inhibits thinking, air that might **** all of you, not just pain, but what makes you unique, your own 10 commandments
of speech, the old testament, the source book of insight into whatever
makes your lungs breath in rhythmic to heart beating, and dying
discordant disrupts the gene sequencing of inhaling and exhaling

the editors and the critics overlooking, that sit on both shoulders,
are already complaining, no más, no más, no más!
suture that incision, close your mouth, the unholy hours
need a special silence, Ruth’s lips that move but go unheard,
make no mistake, we want to listen in, voyeurs of visions
but we need you broken, we need a break, from confronting
the repeatedly delayed, but undeniable, the clockwork orange
second coming of the ungodly hours

4:02am
Sabato
4/11/20twenty
new york city of lips