You ask me,
Do I miss you?
How can I miss you?
You are always with me,
Your face behind my eyes,
Your soul sleeping in my heart,
The essence of you dances for me,
Sinuous curves shimmy within shadows.

You ask me,
Do I love you?
You should be asking,
How much you love me?
Then measure that feeling,
Holding it tightly deep inside,
Knowing that I feel just the same,
With every single fibre of my being.

You ask me,
Do I miss you?
Perhaps, I might sigh,
The very truth, though,
Is that I miss you terribly,
Is that part of me aches for you,
Though we are intrinsically entwined,
Sometimes, such closeness is not enough.

You ask me,
Do I love you?
Do you need to ask?
I live and breathe you,
As you live and breathe me,
Your roads lead to me, woman,
I am by your side, holding your hand,
One day, we will surely arrive together.

You ask me,
Do I miss you?
Everyday baby,
Never doubt it is so,
My pain is like your own,
Insomnia, numbing, yearning,
Hiding tears in the soft darkness,
But knowing, we will be free, one day.

©Paul M Chafer 2015

Buy me a bottle of whatever you're drinking
cause I'm trying to bury myself in the grave next to your hollow bones

Pace through the traffic back and forth
Maybe I'm blindfolded or just plain blind

Buy me another bottle of whatever you're drinking
cause I'm tired of pretending I'm at war when all I want is peace

I'm staring at the stars, I followed your eyes there
Now I find myself praying you might shift your gaze
Maybe glance at me when I'm not looking

I'll take another round of whatever you're drinking
cause I'm hoping your skeletons are as dark as they look

Lately it's been too bright to sleep
I can see carpe noctem etched in your fingertips
Like a print: your identity

I'll have another glass of whatever you're drinking
cause I can't think of another way to get close to you

For I'm already buried by your hollow bones

I'll take one last shot of whatever we've been drinking
cause it has to be better than drinking the same old **** alone

It was four o'clock in the morning. Robert wondered why his name was Robert. He decided to get rid of the "Bert" because it was the name of a Sesame Street character or the name of a ******* in Tempe, Arizona. Then again, he thought, "Hey, just Rob makes me sound like I change tires for a living or that I work out at a gym that discriminates fat people and blacks." Rob or Robert took a second to evaluate his last thought and if thinking "and blacks" made him a racist person.

Robert sat on a bench and wondered if the woman beside him was expecting Forest Gump-esque wisdom.

Robert thought of a friend he had in grade eight, named Alexander. He thought of how Alexander had a glass eye. Robert wondered how Alexander had a glass eye but could not remember or did not know why Alexander had a glass eye. Robert, then, concluded that sometimes he will not know something and how that is okay because most people don't know anything--it's a collection of approximates that stay in our heads, he thought. Robert asked himself if his last thought made him intelligent or dumb and pretentious. Robert decided that he did not know. How meta, he thought. Robert, then, decided to stop using the word "meta" so much, because it made him feel like a professor with bitterness and something to prove.

Robert watched his sister struggle with an eating disorder. She was in a hospital bed, with an IV in her arm. Robert did not know if he would struggle with anything as hard as his sister struggled with anorexia. Robert, then, had intense but fleeting anger at every person that bragged about being anorexic or made it seem cool.

Robert sat on his toilet and wondered what his true identity was and what his true nature was. He wondered what was inherent and what was synthetic. Robert, then, wondered if a synthetic personality was inherent. Robert asked himself if he was a good person. He wasn't sure if sitting on the toilet, in his grandmother's house, and ******* to interracial ebony teen ****, on his iPhone, made him a good person or not. His concerns soon past, though, as soon as Lauren started to **** the pizza guy's white ****.

Robert walked down the street and was contemplating some of the issues that plagued his ****-infested mind, while he was on the toilet. Robert saw a girl running from a guy. Robert asked himself if he was a hero or inherently good. Robert, then, concluded that he was inherently a coward, since he did nothing and hoped that somebody else would save her.

Robert didn't meet a girl and knew that no one would write prose about his meeting a girl and their mutual love for one another. Robert was eating a steak sub, while thinking this.

Robert returned to the hospital, to pick up his sister. On the way home, his sister talked about how attractive her nurse was. Robert asked, "What did he look like?" His sister, then, said, "It wasn't a he. My nurse was a girl." Robert was okay with his sister being attracted to girls, but hoped that she didn't get more than him or more attractive girls than him, because, for some reason, that would make him feel insecure. Robert decided to stop eating so many steak subs and to work out. Robert asked his sister if she wanted to get steak subs. She said, "sure".

Robert was working out in his basement. He heard the sound of retching, upstairs. Robert followed the sound of the vomiting and opened a bathroom door. He saw his sister stick her finger down her throat. He said to his sister, "That isn't anorexia." His sister said, "I know. There's a lot you don't know about me." Robert said, "I'm sorry."

Do people actually fall in love?
I've never wanted to dance
in the road in a rain shower
with a man so beautiful
he makes my chest hurt.

No one has ever made
my heart skip a beat,
except when it was fear.

Do people actually fall in love?
It all seems like lust to me.
Lust is such an empty thing.
Love is supposed to be warm,
Burning hot, even.
It's supposed to make you feel full.
But lust is all I see,
Like a match,
Intense and fiery,
But fleeting.

It's not love.