Chicago

Strung between Astoria and another hotel
plane full of pretty girls
tousled heads on lover’s shoulders,
wish I were one
but my shoulder is sleeping
in the bed I left unmade.
I was so good at leaving,
before I met you.
Before I met you,
I left everyone I ever loved.

Shove worry behind skull skeletons,
slam the door before this speed can slip
through bony fingers, slide into my eyes.
Go back to sucking your dick in a dirty public bathroom,
we’re better at sex than fear.
You first said you loved me
while the guy who loved kissing you
was fucking me
straddling you.
The light on this flight is warmer than early winter
on your face two hours later
over decaf coffee and religion,
another 8am diner dinner.
Perfect.

We build tomorrow every day of our lives.
Funny how you can be aware of something for years
without giving much of a damn,
then wake up one day
and find the most exciting thing your world’s ever known.
Tomorrow we can be anything we want.
Is the ennui I suffered from
Common to our cohort?
Modern life prescribed
School 5 to 25
Work till death
The chronicled coma epidemic.

Familiar as frightening,
so similar as to seem a known commodity.
Safe, whether or not it’s true
bound
to happen
Let’s make it so,
quicksilver dawn
after today’s heavy thunderstorms.
leave milk out,
I’ll come round more often.
Death's too common to leave emotion unexplored
looking at you, I feel.

Sex Ed

Piss scented cushion
seated in the tower of babel
(human birdsong fallen in my ears),
I travel through time,
live in seasons unoccurred,
waiting on Tomorrow Girl.

She runs late but comes soon.

15 minutes declined;
I'm gonna swallow this
(pulse pounding temple pressure).
Digest her name
write it on the mirror
in every two bit room
of every three bit town
I ever stay in.

(Alone, mostly, clinging when I’m not.)

I have forgotten seduction more complicated
than “Yes”, “Do” and/or “Please”,
but my lovers are complicated humans.
I will be a student forever.