That the colors remain distinct
settles something inside you
that’s seething and howling,
desperate to be soothed.
If it holds you, be held.
011021
A part of me
believed you would
remember.
Part of you did:
tracing our words
over in crayon.
Heirlooms
You who passed down
smoothed surfaces
slipped naked and
sleep-creased into
merciless loss.
Started trying
harder, praying
more. This was your
punishment come
for you at last.
You forgot to
keep smiling. Stopped
laughing. Edges
jutted; threads snapped.
Effort failed you.
Prayers, too. And yet —
surrender felt
sometimes like a
long-awaited
benediction.
Desire
Chewed up and spit out.
Swallowing hunger;
spitting out longing.
Fake It
You sent me things you were working on: sketches, ideas. Detailed the plot of a novel you planned to write. When you moved to New York, you started telling people you were a writer.
Terms and Conditions
Let’s live like Hemingway and Hunter S. and fuck it all to hell. Let’s get drunk on cocktails in the afternoon next to the water. Follow the sun and laugh at the fog.
Stay up all night and talk about what never worked and what did and maybe scratch the surface of why and I’m sorry and what if.
Let’s pretend we’re friends. Stop talking. Kill six-packs and remember the good times, the old times. Pretend not to care. Pretend to care. Ache and let it show and then hide it all over again.
Because it can’t hurt if you tell yourself it doesn’t and you tell yourself you’re free. You tell yourself you have all the time and all the world and that nothing matters now.
6/30/14
We swam in the ocean and picked up pieces of jellyfish washed up and left behind like giant drops of water on the sand. We found a big orange newly dead crab on the beach and I pulled off its legs to see what was inside. We buried it.
Bodybreak
Heartbreak tells of the splintering, cracking,
numb knowing in your chest.
But only hints at the full-body anguish —
how the break spreads out all over.
Mean Things
The meanest things
explain so simply.
The job you hate.
The orgasm you fake.
The drinking and the
laxatives and the juicing.
The canceled plans.
The unanswered texts.
The irresponsible things.
The responsible things.
The weight in your walk and
the suck in your stomach.
A Good Martini Is Always Gin
We went to a bar for drinks after seeing a movie downtown and ordered two gin martinis. As the bartender turned away to make them, an older man eating at the bar leaned over: “You shouldn’t have to specify gin. A good martini is always gin.”