When I was so in love with you. My head spins and the world shifts. And there is nothing but wrinkled sheets and bare feet and the aftermath of long quiet afternoons. Only now there are cats crying. Plumbing problems. Interventions (of all sort). I've started losing my accent and using punctuation. Ignoring the constant longing for small letters. Things left unsaid. When I was so in love with you you were a window that I always opened and closed. Found at the ends of my fingertips. When I wanted. It's how things go. Now you are here and there and the cat cries and eats and wants to come in and go out and we are closing all the windows up tight, on the house. I can see my breath, sometimes, in the early mornings. When you are real and I am too.

i'm looking for the ins and outs. the ways that words used to feel streaming and alive from my fingertips. this might be the end of them. for days. and days. and days. of waiting. the doldrums. the fantastical ways that the days can. really. end up being the rhythm that you were looking for to begin with when you first started this whole thing. all that fucking stuff that you can't even see now. for looking.

oh my god
he says
and she says
nothing

rolls her eyes in the way that annoying teenagers do in movies and in real life when they know that someone is watching.

it's a real important question
she protests
about something that probably doesn't matter anyway

i really wanted everything to come down to this
and then it did

there's nothing left
in this life
that feels
like the last
blank pages
of a savored
over
book
like all the best
stuff has
already
gone

i used to think profanity was the way to go
all those effs and sssssshhhhs and
ka ka kuuhs
i used to love the gesture
of it all
to throw up my hands
and tongues
and the bottoms of my shoes
and say
that it didn't all matter
all that much
but there's a weakness
in that
too

there are lots of late-night adverts

on television

wares to keep people

fit or fat

and the night

constant

glowering

it's odd
having this
many years
searchable
right at the
fingertips
police
pregnant
broken
glass
and caged
birds
and oceans

or something

i know how to bake bread.

make jams and jellies, of all sorts.

i can improvise

the English Romantics

postmodernism

American Literary Nationalism

burnt toast

with enough audience

and purpose

i can make it all

taste like

something

purposeful

with or without

the lights