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?