Unwritten

Now there is time enough for other stories.

Not my half-baked aphorisms and navel-gazing,

so many strands of lint tied together to let my tall tales scramble

out and down; away from the steaming entrails–the flaming wreckage of myself.

 

The fire’s out and now it’s cold enough for squirrels, soft

and lazily curled together in the blackened pit that was my furnace.

Nesting in the warmth of shredded papers, that meant so much before,

but serve a better purpose now—pressed close against two slow heartbeats.

 

There is space now in the crook of my neck for the top of your head

and at the top of your head for the touch of my lips, beloved.

Space now for silence.

 

Enough of me–

I know my self enough

to know that those stories will keep without the telling.

 

Speak.

W——.

Thank you for submitting your letter to Human Resources.

Per HR.2301-3b, after full review and with the advice of legal counsel, the below, partially redacted correspondence has been approved.

You may now send your approved letter via standard post to the intended recipient.
 

Untitled

Did the stories keep without the telling?
Well, yes, but now they’re sort of smelling.
And squirrels make neurotic pets
(As one presumes I should have guessed).
So, start a fire and cue the smoke,
It’s time to take another toke.

Untitled

It’d be a lie to put some words to paper,
to say I have a way to express
anything that’s in my head and worth
expressing. I haven’t; the bits of truth
exist, and they are butterfly beautiful,
beyond my clumsy tries to pin them to the page.

Untitled

I like you, but not the way you treat my mattress like another piece of furniture. It used to hurt my stomach when you’d leave, I just don’t know what that means.

Untitled

At the age of 25
I came home after
working 16 hours.

I heated up a pot
of Dinty Moore
from a can, and waited.

It was warm and salty,
with whole grain bread
to help me shit better.

I thought while I ate.
And then some more,
right after, brushing.

I sat on the edge
of my mattress,
I kicked off my shoes.

My feet smelled
like old cheese and
a three-day sweat.

“Well” I thought,
and not much else.
But sleep felt good.

Untitled

Your rosebush-tangled hair- the kind that gets
me into trouble. It doesn’t know which way
it’s going and you can’t keep it down (your eyes:
blue, laughing; my eyes: brown).

I hit the interstate in a shit-
ass ’94, roll down the windows and shatter
the sound barrier with my off-key singing.

Eyes blue- laughing. You tilt your head
when you look at me, and I think you’re in on it.
My wavy brown bedhead-tangled accomplice.

I don’t need to see them to imagine legs in cut-off
jeans, propped up on the dashboard. Eyes still laughing
their blue conspiracy; but your face is lost on me.

My eyes blind to everything but too-slow traffic and
these dotted white lines. Feeling that absence-
that empty space the wind leaves when it takes my breath
back out the passenger’s side.

My hand in your lap, palm open-
yours wrapped around your seat’s head-cushion.
We can’t ignore the rushing of the wind.

Untitled

Something flowery, about

 

pushing fingertips
against fingertips, melting;

 

the look on your face
when you forget yourself.

 

Stop. Only these things matter:

You are here,

and I am here–

choosing to be together.

Untitled

I want to call and tell you
that I drank a glass of lemon water, with vitamin;
ate rotisserie chicken, watched television, and then ate some more chicken.
Pass along vague feelings-
of unease and boredom and my overwhelming need
to know just what you had for dinner today,
or how many times (exactly) you peed.

Call and share this strange fascination I’m developing
for the tiniest minutiae of our lives apart.

But I have this overwhelming fear
of voicemail, so it goes- and so
instead I watch some great kung-fu, and
masturbate (it’s not so great, at times it feels mechanical).

Untitled

In sub-zero weather there are
still consequences. Smokestack
clouds of nitrogen oxide hang suspended in the air,
with a sense of permanence, gawking
at countless cars, abandoned — to freeze against the snowbanks.