It's your turn to work.
For a year
I have shuttled my life
Backandforth
Backandforth
For you.
To see you.
But now it's your turn.
You can come see me.
Use your gas
Use your time
I can't do all the work
All the time.

This is supposed to be equal.

Also, get a job
And get some independence.
It's time to be an adult.

screamingloudly, shoutingcrazy
don't know why we do this daily;

backandforth the screaming match
when our ideas they just won't catch.

two bullheaded people clashing heads
until one of them storms off instead.

i mean well and you do too
but our ideas just won't go through.

banging heads against brick salls
our yelling echoing down the halls.

im on page two,
youre on page one;
all i know is this aint fun.  

screamingloudly, shoutingcrazy
i dont know why we do this daily.

i learned about loneliness last night,
belatedly, because no one ever bothered
to explain it to me- it was
something best kept for the time it existed in
the blank space where a hand had once been
a soft shaky touch
now absent

the sorrow comes in sultry waves
with the indigo tide of me missing your breath
on the hollow in my sleepy neck,
a whisper backandforth inandout and then
a hitch, a twitch and the slow descent
from sea-froth into dreamland

we drifted, content, into the
scared scarlet hills where nightmares roam
where i made my home, knowing that
in sleep your whispers still coated my pillowcase
and i was not alone

we sank, satiated, into
the wasteland in our wasted heads
knowing that despite the terror, we could share your bed
knowing that when i woke, gasped, drenched in sweat
you would brush the hair
from my forehead
i'd remember my respite
and we would settle down once again

and as i lie, disconsolate
my ribcage heaving, desolate, i pull your jacket
to my face, breathe in your scent, your comfort
rise from the depths
and thank whatever guides our fate
that i only feel this pain
in the present

SALVATION IS WITHIN YOU


"SALVATION IS
WITHIN YOU!"

said the crumbling
brick wall

with a brick or two
missing

in a spraycan-ish
graffiti voice.

A one-eyed cat
appeared

to be the owner
of this wall

patrolling it fiercely
back and forth backandforth.

"SALVINATION IS WITHIN YOU!"
the wall kept repeating.

The rain was
unrelenting

as if it bore a grudge
against the world

of this
particular moment.

The rain hopping off the ground
and disappearing back into

its falling self.

I wished I could do that.

Hunger gnawed
at me.

My stomach growled
at a passing dog

and the passing dog
growled at me.

The piece of darkness
in the shape of a one-eyed cat

saw it
on its way.

Tail between its legs
the scruffy dog whined off.

I rested my weariness
against the SALV

of the red and blue bricked
scrawl

ATION
emerging from my right temple.

Even the graffiti
seemed to resent

my presence.

I looked within me
and found

the usual
nothing.

The day was ten years long and
had barely begun.

"SALVATION IS
WITHIN YOU!"

I told the rain
falling in fast forward

as I was held
on pause.

But the rain
wasn't listening

to anyone but
itself.

you stab at the sheet of fabric in your hands, the needle flashing. back and forth and back and forth and backandforth.
your movements are rhythmic. i lean in, listening to the drum, the identifiable footsteps down the hall, the delayed strike of thunder after lightning in a storm.
you move closer to whisper in my ear, never stopping your work:
"you won't remember this."
i now notice the stains on your shirt. they're speckled in various colors, greens and blues and shades of magenta.
i should have known.
you're silent again---or maybe my ears have just stopped working because i can't even hear your breathing. i don't look up this time. i'm too focused on the crate on the floor, the one that's full to the brim of clothing hangers. i close my eyes. you watch me sleep.
i don't even notice when the fabric tears.