Up late still unslept and unkempt- 
 Feet unswept up off my filth woven carpet,
 I am balanced here, tiptoed. Ankle twisted.
 Pretending to breathe. 
 Some reek of stained oxygen through diseased window screen. 
 The permanent burn of an abandoned iron sits dead in the center of the room. 
 It was there when I moved in here. 
 It will be there when I leave.

I am all my unpacked boxes of useless things.
I used to be better at compartmentalizing.
I keep taking you out to look at you, hold you up against the light.
I like the shine of you, The tarnish on your silver.
I like putting my hands on you.

I’m reading articles that prove that I listened when you called me this afternoon.
That I paid attention.
It was still Thursday then and I still haven’t slept but it is no longer Thursday.
So, yesterday afternoon really.
But who knows what a day means anymore, anyway?

I’m blissfully unemployed.
I am permanent Sunday morning
I am matinee films and orange juice
I am the entryway to my Great Aunt Francine’s apartment 
Where the hall table always has an arrangement of fresh flowers. 
I am those too, the embalmed blooms. 

More than you know.
It’s stuck in my mind like the moan of a love 
letter half written, never sent. 
Lately you’ve been on my… and so on. 
Words are best stolen after 2 a.m. 
Which is to say my words after 2 a.m. are worthless 
and my judgment long gone, 
So why not steal some? 
“Never ask permission only beg forgiveness”
As you say so often. 
You stole my affection and you ask me to forgive you everyday. 
You had my permission to take it, always. 

I’d be happy to have my essential organs notarized on your behalf.
Or perhaps just engraved,
If lost please return to: you know. 
And so on. And such.

Will have to look into the costs, 
If my insurance will cover it or not. 
And so on. And such.

I’m all in a fuffle

Eyelashes all stumble, exhausted

Passed out on flushed skin

Words all mumble, 

all glad I caught you I’m in love with you what? Never mind

My meaning’s been hiding under the tip of some neighborhood tongue.

Hanging out on the store front

​Vernacular.

Chewing up langues de chat

Cigarette smoke and unsalted butter

I’m not mad at you

Got no reason But I ought to.

It’s probably on the tip of my tongue, too.

All twisted up from missing you

And nothing tastes the same these days.

Gone all crimson, metallic

Left all my modifiers misplaced, you did recklessly.

I blame the water

The rust of the pipes

Where the iron prayed for oxygen

Turned the faucet drip to wine

                                to whiskey

It ages in the barrel of a man’s body.

 

The hymns that the radiator sings all night keep me awake

Breaks against plaster when it’s complaint heats to argument

The tin echo of domestic dispute in a rented apartment

The war between the wear of winter and the drywall

The story of a lover that crumbled.

It’s been cold here.

     Raining all the time.

I’ve got nothing but raindrops to tell you.

And that the skin of my elbows is cracked,

Revealed all of my bricks.

And that I miss you.

 

Can I just come home now?