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.
Monthly Archives: April 2015
Fuffled(edited)
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?