i just wished
that i could still pretend
you cared about me
like you used to.

then again,
i hate myself
for thinking about you
in the first place.

is this a poem?
i don't care.
i hate you.
i'm sorry.

i only see her when i'm drunk, you know
when my intoxication throws me headlong into
that space between missing you and missing the heat
of somebody, anybody, burning on the altar.

our dance is not as elegant, because she doesn't know
the footwork like you do. the arc of her body isn't as near
and her lines aren't as clean and precise.
we know the steps, though; we know those.

but after we move in time for a song or two,
after the crescendos and the sustained major peak,
i remember, bowing and panting as though before an audience
that she'll never move me like you.

ATTENTION/ATTENTION/MAYDAY/MAYDAY/ATTENTION
oh god please help me oh god, oh, oh god
ATTENTION/ATTENTION/MAYDAY/MAYDAY/ATTENTION
i think it's coming, rushing headlong this way
ATTENTION/ATTENTION/MAYDAY/MAYDAY/ATTENTION
it's the darkness, the monster, the forgetting of all things
ATTENTION/ATTENTION/MAYDAY/MAYDAY/ATTENTION
oh god please, someone help, someone help me
ATTENTION/ATTENTION/MAYDAY/MAYDAY/ATTENTION
before it takes the words away, before it claims your name for its own
ATTENTION/ATTENTION/MAYDAY/MAYDAY/ATTENTION
if i'm not here when you are, look in the black pit. it's where you left me.

remember?

the monsters of money
have come back to this place

their new batch swarming
like flies over just-dead meat

i do not trust them, for
i see the hyena in their eyes

it is innocence, they tell me,
that they are new and learning

well, methinks they are not
so much "innocent" as they are

ignorant and savage
sharpening spears for the pig

but hey, daddy had money
and mommy had time
so they've decided to come to college.

it was the right choice once.
at least, it sure seemed like the right choice.
defend and protect, i said.

i donned my righteousness like armor
its gleam so bright
everyone had to look away.

and so they did.
but they can't see
that inside it i'm burning.

they can't see
that it's a thin patina
over an ocean of regret.

and though my armor shines on
they can't see what i see
that there is no feeling anymore

no hope of escaping the
silent crashing.
i think i hear the ocean.

the only change
he had perceived
in that year of observation
was that the abyss was
widening, widening, widening
greedy for the mass
of all the things that used to be.

won't you put out the light
and come to bed?

so far from Golgotha
i have come,
brushing dust from my eyes
bathing in sickly streams
to get rid of the stench.
(though the blood,
nothing rids me of that spot)
sometimes the sun sears my skin.
other times the rain admonishes it.
but regardless of the weather,
the time, and the distance,
when the wind blows in from Calvary,
i can still smell Lily.

i know, kid--
i know that she shines
like diamonds in sun.
i know her smell moves you,
hurls you de-centered into falling
falling
sweet.
i know you see her and you
remember life, and your name.
but i know, kid--
that smile is not rapture,
her teeth don't glitter for you.
it's an evolution thing;
it only means she's hungry again.

Capitalization

He ran then, lungs seizing and feet slamming against the pavement so hard that it felt like he would break apart. And it felt good. He wasn't running anyplace, or for any real reason, except that maybe the jolting thud would reach his brain and silent it (finally, finally, silence). If even just for a minute.

It didn't, of course. So eventually he slowed his run to a jog, and pretended like that was his original plan. Around the park, then, and back to his building, and up the elevator to the too-expensive floor, where he got off and went in his apartment, full of projection and deceit, too large for any single man. But he had success, and caché, and money to burn, and so here he was.

And it's not like such a big place didn't have its uses. When he brought a woman over, to give her the tour, it gave so many opportunities to pose in his too-expensive apartment, in his too-expensive suits, and it gave him so many opportunities to get close and to fill her senses with his smell (from a too-pricey bottle, naturally). His bedroom was usually last. Or the living room. Depending on where he wanted to use her, and how quickly he wanted to throw her away.

Sometimes, he let her stay, because he felt guilty for what he had done or because she was better company than his too-expensive furniture. And sometimes she came over again, for another night. Not for too many, though. Company was something he desired very much; closeness was something he feared like death. But sometimes, sometimes she did get close. Close enough to see the glimmer of a man spinning madly into oblivion. Sometimes she found him unconscious on the floor. Sometimes she found the coke.

She'd usually leave, then come back, a blonde, or a redhead this time, and for a while it would be strictly the sofa. Strictly the motions. Strictly the theatrical grabbing and the selfish sweat. And then it would be the bottle, too-expensive, to be sure. Too expensive to be consumed, shot glass after shot glass, at a stool in the kitchen. Always the kitchen, because if he threw up, it would be on the tile. And if he fell from the stool, maybe his head would split open, and maybe all of the things he had tried so long to forget would come spilling out.

Maybe there would be silence.

maybe i can't write a masterpiece.
maybe i can't dance like Fred Astaire.
maybe i won't climb that staircase;
no, i neither stay nor dare.

perhaps i won't compose a symphony.
or i won't have the voice to say what i might say.
i think in time i'll accept all these things
but not that i can't make you stay.

so instead i will sing when no one is listening,
i will write all these words and then watch them all burn.
they will light up the night like a beacon-fire,
so that maybe one day you'll return.

that tapping, that
patterpatterpatter
the rain makes
on the window,
it is not water.
it is the sound of
absolution
and
impermanence.

tomorrow the streets will be
a memory.

sometimes i browse clearance racks
and buy things i know i will never wear;
too edgy, too fashionable, too hip for me.
i buy them for that very reason,
so that maybe someone will think that i am
what i'm not.

Ὀδυσσεύς

How long did it take?
After the long wanderings,
the storms,the horrors of war--
back from the dead lands,
how long did it take?
I mean, come on.
Fuck fidelity, we all know
you were nobody's captive.
After so long alone,
her perfume and her power--
they enchanted you, and you liked it.

So how long did it take?

After your homecoming,

after the blood had been spilled

and your bed reclaimed--

how long did it take for you to look at her,

lying across from you in the moonlight,

grey in her hair and lines on her once-smooth cheeks--

how long did it take for you

to miss the sea queen's smell?

How long did it take for you

to think, to whisper, to say to the darkness as you

got up quietly and stood on the balcony,

'No. It was not worth it, after all.'