sitting across from you bored sipping water while the gray light slants through the blinds makes the blinds look gray we fuck so good

resting on couches for five more minutes knowing we could’ve done better why is our house so big, our carpet ruins the family room knowing this was the best we could do

knowing we just made it out alive made it slithering through the hangman’s knot and the meat grinder and the office supply store clerk who knew

we were postmodern freaks imbibing theologies we wished were inherent how do we still live in this town

the silence at dinner holds us I wash the dishes and immediately set the table for tomorrow night so I don’t have to do it tomorrow night tomorrow night I have to send in the bills

the orgasms are empty, pure, chemical, fleshy, exactly what they are

our alarm clock plays the radio

i wake up to the nightmare I fantasized about

and you’re worth it

They made you old

Oiled the hinges of my bedroom door

Put the green towel by the sink

Moved the bowls

These silent mechanics

Their implied goodbyes

Net

Every time I see a spider

I worry briefly that I’m a fly

I wonder if the flies are afraid

I wonder why I’m afraid

I wonder how something with wings falls prey to something without them

I worry deeply about this

I wonder which would be worse:

One thousand of them in an

Entrapment so small they would blanket me certainly or

A pitch black enclosure so big I’d never know when one was near

Icon

I’ve been the reason for ample art

Very little though, relative to Marilyn Monroe

Maybe I’ll be famous for sleeping with famous people

For being the muse for famous songs and famous poems

Because art only emerges from brevity

Mine is too brilliant to capture,

That’s my excuse

I’d rather be no one but a little picture in your bedside dresser

I wish the poems stayed in a little book hidden away

When someone uses you as a channel, you copy

Even more when they realize their creation is neither you nor they

Since there is no we, it becomes confetti

On the table at a lawn party

Something insignificant

Something memorable

The First Floor

I have a mask in my closet
And I have a dog
I have a whining in my ear
And it's not the dog. 
I want to bring you to the shore
Walk a while without speaking
Slip your hands in my pockets
And sway until we erode. 
When the whining starts to spit I sprint to the closet
Slip on the mask
Give a swift kick and split to the bathroom
Rip off and resist
My face is a void of mirror magnetism
I come back warped and regretful
A convenient mix
I have a dog in my house
And he doesn't recognize me.
My heart aches with an imitated naïveté
I get him a bowl of water
And scratch behind his ears
An airplane drones
The kitchen clock ticks
I have a mask in my mirror
And a dog in my fridge
I want to slip your hands into my pockets
And sway until we erode.

Date

To fantasize is only human
The term is often misused
I fantasize about our children's graves
Spattered in leaf shade, waiting in aching lines to meet us
We have not just buried our own.
The concept should be familiar enough
I slaughter a million when I salt my food
You'd kill so many if you kissed my neck
The funereal future never was ours to bloodstain
The Germans took our chance, I think
Or maybe it was the waiter
It's deterministic, I know
I've been told it's too abstract for a creed
I can only bring myself to blame the logarithm
Mistakes make people,
And there are no mistakes
I've never been more sure.

Thundercat

You'll have me as long as I'm free

As long as you have me I won't be

Inhabit this paradox with me. 

You drive me insane.

Not so much as to be my only choice

Am I patient, or afraid,

And how much better in bed could I get

How much better in your head could I get

Some waits

Are worth the waste

I have no idea if this is one. 

Before Dawn

A snake bit me
With tweezer teeth
And human arm body
A cat scratched me
Staple claws
In catless house
But I am no mouse
There must be some sort of prey
Unborn inside me

Paris

You are the cup of orange juice I use to
Swallow down the pills
The perfect vehicle of fruity taste and
You've got me fooled
They gonna talk about us someday
At the end of the 6 o'clock news
I hope they write about our bodies
In the newspaper movie reviews
Me and my lover come between
Each other, he says,
"If I had her, I don't think
I could love her."
Everything I've said to him I've
Said to another but we've
Got a silence unlike
Any other
You are the color of the advertisement
That made me buy the shoes
And in a couple days they wrecked my feet
But I still
Didn't believe I'd been used.
We gonna go to Paris someday
In a big hot air balloon
And if we're lucky we'll float away and
Never see anyone soon
Me and my lover play
Tricks on each other he
Runs to basement and I
Hide in the cupboard
In between the lines and
In between the covers there's
So many categories I've
Fallen under
I see your face at every stop sign
I hear your voice in the mall
I am the gum on the bottom of your sneaker I'm
Stuck here but you
Never see me at all
We gonna go to Paris someday
In a big hot air balloon
And if we're lucky we'll float away and
Never see anyone soon
You are a child at a party
And I'm your red balloon
Don't ever try and set me free, I'm
Nothing without you.
Me and my lover play
Tricks on each other he
Runs to basement and I
Hide in the cupboard
In between the lines and
In between the covers there's
So many categories I've
Fallen under
You are the cup of orange juice I use to
Swallow down the pills
The perfect vehicle of fruity taste and
You've got me fooled