Seventy-two.

The only thing I know about love is, that it's always going the wrong way.

002.

001.

(Moving these from alittlenoise.org, apologies.)

Seventy-one.

Seven-twelve. A.M.
There were two many nightmares.
Something about airports,
a taxi cab in the wrong place,
missing your flight.

You stare for a long time.
Not at anything really.
An empty spot on the yellow wall,
or the white closet door,
or the ridges of the frame.
You don't touch each other
good morning.

On the way home,
apples spill out onto the sidewalk.

You are walking into the kitchen
to remove boiling water from the stove
when it hits you and then
your face is in your hands
and you can't find the floor
and thank god
you're in here alone.

Seventy.

Not all of us
sing names.

Sixty-nine.

And I said, "You shouldn't write fiction.
I don't feel anything." It isn't always about lovers,
it isn't always speaking to someone inside the room.
So, how well do you think you know me?
I say this to wallpaper. Dusty blue damask.

He gives you a book of poems
that he has written within the last six months.
You read them late in the afternoon. They might
as well be titled, "You Are Not The One,"
or "I Remember Everyone But You Even Though
You're The Only Set Of Hands Still Here."
Well, fuck. What are you supposed to do
with that?

I work so goddamn hard to build a life away
from you. You don't want this but someday you'll be dead
and I'm going to need something to fill the space.
Besides, I sleep in your bed, give you home,
kiss your forehead when you're sad. You don't love me,
so what more do you want?

Again, to the wallpaper.

It's like listening to a song
with the most beautiful chord progression
that's ever dug its way into your eardrums, but
the only lyrics are, "Wake up!" over and over.

Sometimes I don't know where I am.

Sixty-eight.

Eventually even the name becomes painful to roll around in your mouth. Tiny slivers driving themselves into your tongue. A character in a movie shares it, those horrible syllables, and you cringe, spit up blood on the sidewalk.

At stoplights, he doesn't touch you like he used to. Red, and he would turn to kiss you, or dive his fingers into your hair. Sometimes they're the same ones, a fleeting deja vu. At the intersection of Islington and Bartlett, he doesn't even look at you.

Hair sticks to the side of your face and you begin to mouth the letter L. The light turns green, and it is too late. One-point-five minutes later and he parallel parks smoothly in front of his house, an action requiring hands and judgment, which you have always found to be attractive, as you are often lacking one or the other.

2am, bed, and you both fail to say "goodnight."