Predictive Text

I would love for you to come over
and see if we could get some rest.
A drink or two to start, then you
lead us to bed. Find your comfort, first,
in full, and I will find mine in yours.
Then we will sleep.

*

Morning will be the first language
we learn together, the grammar of sunrise,
the syntax of not enough sleep,
the definition of what wind really is:
perfect, simple, clean. See: promise.

*

We almost get it,
like we almost get each other.
Understanding is always
reassuring and disheartening,
a precipice and a plunge.
You never know as much
as you think, will never know
as much as you had hoped. But that gives you
something to strive for, to be surprised by.
We are now older versions of ourselves but when aren’t we?
We panic in such revelations and revert
into good little students, cracking open
the novels of our years gone by,
hunting for symbols and foreshadowing,
all the a-has that might have predicted today.
But the pages are thin and fading, and our marginalia
spouts only nonsense, and the school bell
is ringing. It’s time to go home.

mydecaying

Waiting for the crackle of some great something
to start the day, I sip my coffee and make my hair
fashionable and imperfect, put together but not too
put together, my daily attempt at “effortlessness.”
This is a lie. There is always effort.
There are always pills and moisturizers
fighting well-muscled childhood tragedies.
There are always ice packs to depuff
the whiskeyed moon eclipsing my face.
There are always women,
to seek, to please, to impress.

*

The afternoon is a summer dress with bags
under her eyes, striking dark circles
caffeine hasn’t fixed. My stomach has
rejected the offer of lunch in favor
of the mythological energy and clarity
the internet has promised. It doesn’t come.

*

The deflating day gives way
to the severe cheekbones of evening.
I have arrived, despite all odds.
The pennies in my pocket have been perfect
companions, each and every hour.
I thank them and their luck.
I have spoken only when spoken to, and sit
once more in silence. I switch myself off,
into deep do not disturb, though I want someone
to see through the facade of “I’m doing all right,
how about you?” You can only get away
with disappearing and dissipating
for so long. I long to leave
and come back, newly
calm, courageous, whole.

*

The hub of my heart imports hollow mysteries
every night. Unease without clear origin.
I storm myself awake and lie
without change for hours,
letting the process swift and churn.
The next ship is now arriving.
More and more tarnished goods
are coming in. They laugh
and move and circulate.
Me and my salted mouth do not.

Looking Goodbye

I remember us well-dressed
when you left, all done up
in dark, elaborate attire,
that summer a book of matches
aflame in my jacket pocket.

How historically slow
you finished your coffee.
How you called me golden.
How you did nothing but laugh
all the way away from our city.

Happy Birthday, Asshole

It’s your birthday, you’re at the bar,
and expectation is everywhere.
Everyone wants you to have fun,
but your idea of fun doesn’t jive
with theirs, not tonight, so they assume
you’re not having a good time,
even though everything is fine.
They don’t understand your silence
is more than a vehicle for sorrow,
and now they feel obligated
to cheer you up, a self-imposed
endeavor which will result in guilt
if they fail to succeed, meaning
they will stop at nothing.
They say, “Come on, dance already,”
but your feet refuse to rattle.
They say, “Come on, drink already,”
but your lips open for no one.
They’re running out of ideas.
They’re losing their patience.
Then they say, “Come here,
have you ever met So-And-So?”
and hurl you toward a woman
you’d never, ever, want to fuck.
Soon, she, too, grows tired of you.
You haven’t bought her a drink,
you haven’t asked her about her day,
and you could care less about her phone number.
Suddenly, she storms out of the bar, turns back
and huffs, “You ruined your birthday, you asshole!
Are you happy now?” and you want run after her
and ask, “What’s one day going to fix?”
but the night is hot and thick and you can’t move,
and ugly faces crowd around you.

Myself Known

I always have a problem including I
in my work. It doesn’t stop me -

I mean, hello -
but I am ultra conscious

of the frequency of me.
I celebrate and shun myself.

I declare myself both
beautiful and boring, both

wholly original and holy blah blah blah.
I am simultaneously a smile and an SOS.

It’s this constant contradiction
every time my pronoun arrives,

this reflexive twinge kiss of pain.
Place your focus somewhere

else, or else, it threatens, thick
with sentiment and spit.

All of my brain chemistry,
every imbalance, calls me

a narcissist, a nothing-special
cup of overpriced coffee, spilled

on a faded charcoal blazer,
whose buttons and threads

are infinitely more interesting.
So there are times I surrender

and attempt to quell
and replace myself

with a symbol,
something inarguable:

like a bird in the rain,
or a mountain,

or some other big
universal shit.