This poison you feed me
This head wound
Inflicting and compounding;
You will never understand

You size me up
In funhouse mirrors,
Tape measures all stretched out
Because you hate me
And so I cry

I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
I’m sorry I’m so big
I want to be small
Teach me to be small
Or, instead,
Teach me not to have a face
So you do not see me anymore
Please

The sweetness of a dehydrated body,
Tired, weak, blameless,
Addicted
Downing only buckets of saccharine hatred
It smells like cancer and bubblegum,
And that’s just as well

It tastes like
Blood

Why is it so interesting when someone else falls in love?
Is our fascination purely voyeuristic, like the you-are-there of reality-TV?
Is it jealousy or some unwavering belief in lovers as heroes?

What is this relationship? We ask ourselves - and them - let’s take it apart and find out.
Like those YouTube videos where you’re shown how to do French-tip nails.

Is love an impulse, a one-time hookup or even a summer fling, or is it about finding ‘the one’ in the face of our own obligations and ineptitudes?

Love’s ‘high concept’ - it’s many things at once - it’s physical, emotional, intimate - maybe even ******.
Part of our interest has to be our affection (or dislike) of the characters involved.

A relationship isn’t a ‘performance,’ of course, but as friends we might be considered an ‘audience’.

Love is drama. There’s a cast - with their chemistry. There’s a plot - shot through with compelling incidents, difficult situations, tear-jerking agonies, and shocking twists.

The sweet moments, between the actual ‘wow, this is happening’ and everyone finding out. The time the secret belongs to the lovers - that’s their chance to privately define their ungainly new reality - but soon enough, the world finds out, and there’s interest.

At its best, love is the gentle handling of consciousness itself, to evoke the effective resonance of pleasure.

But has it ever truly been a private experience?
.
.
Songs for this:
Me and Mrs. Jones by Michael Bublé (maybe the sexiest song ever)
Me and Mr. Jones by Amy Winehouse

I can read her lips.
Each word formed
With the red and ivory embouchures
That play to my lust.
My mouth moves in sync:
I think, she says,
The blind old perv, she continues,
Has binoculars.

High above this
destiny

I can see your private
mystery

Mechanical wasp controls
the hive

Its sensors are buzzing and about
to go live

Over the shoulder, around
the bend

The naked you is about
to trend

The lights stretch back for miles, hollow stares
all trained toward the twisted, shattered steel,
waved on in pairs and threes like visitation lines
at ******'s speed, slow enough for a glimpse,
high enough for everyone to get a turn.
The night turns every shade of paint black,
each window to a tinted mourner's veil,
glass shards strewn by an uncaring hand
to scintillate like starlight in the glare,
sirens wailing away like the bereaved.

All we want to hear about is love and
               Madness, wounds left in the mind
                              Where what's taken for granted
Was ripped out and scattered, just ash.
               Maybe just madness, then. Addicts
                              Left shaking their cupped hands
Trembling out aching, quaking desire
               Where stillness arrives with a kiss,
                              Where confession pours crimson,
A ****** of claret. Spilled into a glass,
               Sloshed across a tongue, breathing
                              Bitter, barren, dry - washed down
With another glass, until the flavor stains
               Teeth and tongue and lips. We are
                              What we drink: water and blood.
We are what we love: madness, confession.
               Does a ****** see in their subjects
                              The viscid revel of their own scars?

He tried to remember what they looked like as he saw
Where her nails had sunken deep into the comforter
And where his sweat had flattened the sheets.  
And felt ***** just for looking,
Afraid that their memories could see him in the empty room.

How ******* dare they
Indulge in each other when all it becomes
Is a mess for someone else to notice?
Selfish, entitled, lucky
*******.

And he was ashamed
Because he was happy that he noticed what they did
And because he felt like he was there.
Something so **** about imaginary inclusion.
Is that what they wanted?

Changing the bedding felt like desecration,
Like tearing down the set of a Broadway play.
The show was for him,
The show was for the other,
Who taught them how to act?

It hurts to think
About their hollow bodies
Mashing together.
They’re fake-*** moans that the other customers
probably complained about to their
silent spouses.

It hurts to think
That they whispered the moment away
In their insecurities and
in-the-moment-living.  
Jesus, all for nothing.

And he started to cry,
Thinking about the heat that filled the room.
Letting his heaves mirror their motion, and
Then left,
Their passion still damp.

And I laughed…
Nobody laughed back
I was laughing alone
There were eyes on me
I could feel a lot of eyes on me
Feeling me up
Lingering on parts of me
Some parts more than the others
The eyes soon got bored
Lost interest in me and my parts
They switched their attention
back to the customary dullness
However, every time a new pair of eyes set sight on me,
it lingered for a while
But they soon joined the rest
Eyes, many eyes, lots of 'em
I saw them looking
I sensed them looking
They wanted reason
They wanted a story
They wanted to see more than a happy face
It would cheer them up
Helped flush the blandness in?
They dug it out of my laughing face
while I was still alive
I didn’t have a reason now
But they didn’t care
They made it up
Each pair saw a different story
Some were similar, others distinct
Some saw varying proportions
of tragedy and insanity,
while others saw total madness
Some shared their imagination
while others kept it to themselves
Eyes, I wondered,
were funny little organs
They compelled the mighty brain
to think about what they saw,
every time they saw,
and they never stopped seeing.

See the glittering dress
then scroll up
meet the eyes
zoom in as much as you like
she’s clear as the winter sky
not a grain of distortion
she’s a sight for you to devour