This game we are
playing tires me out.
You decided to call it 'hide and seek';
we are the players - you and I, and all of them.
But I question this little game of ours,
everybody's hiding.
Nobody
is seeking.

Through the dark,
I let my eyes adjust.
I did my best
to stay out of sight.
Behind the curtains, below
the cabinets, and until now
hidden in these words.

We remain unseen.
We remain hidden.
No one wanted to be
found.

If I was a work of art I'd be a poem
but just a blank white sheet of generic notebook paper
and you would be a symphony
which sounds pretty beautiful
but I never really liked Bach and
I never really liked Beethoven and
I never really liked Mozart and
I never really liked
myself

but
ohmygoddidIlikeyou
like Da Vinci liked Mona and
Dali liked

l
o
  n
   g

d r i p    i n g
          p
brush strokes depicting surrealist scenes and
Picasso liked Cubism and
Van Gogh liked his own ******* sadness and a tub of sunflower-yellow paint and that girl
he sent his neatly packaged and not-so-neatly severed off ear to

though
I suppose
artists are supposed to hate their art
with a burning self-depreciation sort of self-determination or
at least that's what I got from
Plant and Lydon and Cobain and
every other shooting star rock-and-roll phenomenon with their name engraved on a plaque somewhere
and a drug problem that procured a thousand cigarettes now just as burnt out as they are

but here's the thing
you aren't my art
you
are a breathing
walking
talking
self-portrait that sputters to life every morning
with an accent on each note

like I said
if we were art
you would be a symphony
but the orchestra
is crescondo-ing to no end now and
quite frankly I am tired of all these high-pitched violin marcatos and
I am losing myself in the repeats and
I am just wondering when the fine will come

like I said
if we were art
I would be a poem
that was just an empty piece of drab old paper
much too conventional and clean and
empty
to be appreciated
but
I guess a beginning in the form of an empty sheet of paper is all
Poe and Frost and Plath and
Auden and Silverstein and Dickinson and
Shakespeare and Bukowski and Cummings
had in common
anyway.

The scent of stale cigarettes
still linger on my sheets
but so does
the smell of you.
I can't make myself wash them -
it's where you used to be;
so I cling to them
as I would to you.

Toss and turn,
roll over
Too hot
Oh, too cold.
Come back
Come back,
let me hold you.

I kiss the back of your neck,
rest my eyes
knowing you're there.
But this morning I woke
you, no longer by my side.
I feel bare.

Without you,
My bed is bittersweet.