Congratulations

The new thank you

How to talk about reading

Without talking about actually reading,

The active searching,

Without admitting that I actively searched for the words?

The active searching for response?

How do I boredly respond to yours

That makes not a quiver in me

But just the subtle pang

The good old jesus christ

The, that's all?

How do I even wonder at my reaction to your reaction

The emotionless chill

The chilled emotionless

The chilling emotionlessness.

The phone wants to Autocorrect to

Emotionless ex

Which is a laugh-out-loud slogan

Better a laugh-inside slogan.

Thanks, phone

Thanks, 'net.

Thanks be to god

I am no better than you. I weep at my own words tumbled from my fingers

I weep at the screen with dryer eyes.

This is how we see each other. Through all of this

shit

Just the most least of the worst of the best of the shit. Still nothing less or more than just

good

old

shit.

like everyone

like everyone you cry when you are kissed
  especially in the dark, a tear falling silent from each little eye
down each little cheek
flat on your back, a body
hanging over you
  like everyone does
you think abt love
abt how to kiss without sound
escape
without tears audible
to keep your kissing audience
  in the dark
you definitely don't want a conversation here, now about that
  and you remember the chill of connectionless
  and going in a motion of
no-I-really-do-want-you
just like you think I do want you
  with the windows open & naked
like two kings
  in one kingdom
  trying to share a body
but without that kingdom-brain
without anything for striving
  it's chilly
  & you've got to chill
to flat-on-your-back relax, now
  because kissing is not for minds
  or saving-for-loves only
and loneliness doesn't it save
  you from dying, touchless?
you would cringe for weeks at being touched
  building your fortress
  around your rancid heart
    to keep it all from taking you to war
and like everyone, you try to buzz it away
  with fleets of imagined fire
    and the knowing
  that a body
and a mouth
  can be healthily penetrated
    
     but a brain,
oh
     but that still makes your moats flood out
   and the road is washed away
  so no one can get to us
at all
  anymore

tether

anymore we can just ask straight each other
the anxious can pass, smoke
in an overcast bedroom
  chill
these being the words,
purity ring on repeat
well
may ends
well may birthdays are gone
well I have to move a mind again
  somber just doesn't justice

the flowers are so dead
  & so meaningless that I haven't bothered
  to destroy them
or to even throw them out
I just moved them from the table
onto the floor
  so I've room to elbow around

can it be managed, a life getting saved
time isn't what this was
the great length, big old distances
something so desperate
something so drown,
something so make gel bones
slither
  
   throw a brain away
   puff up a balloon heart & fly up in it
   trust only that
   your hands in the silk sand
   sands in your eyeholes, nostrils
  babybird it to me

I'm sorry my heart is an infant
it should never have arrived alive
it should have been stillborn
I should have had more to drink
  while it was parasiting, puffing
but now I've to raise it up
  nurse it
I can strap it to my back when I go camping
and I can toss it in its harness
  and pull it taught until it snaps back to my arms
 
come on, baby
    grow already

20 day grace.

period
period
period

I haven't had a period
in like 28 years
or like
20 days I think
is what I told the doctor,
but she knows what I know
that 20 days is an arbitrary number
But at the doctor's office, they want figures
not just my figure, though I was more than happy
to show her, sitting up, naked, with a thin sheet over
my abdomen & thorax, & I had to hold up my arms over
my head in a way I thought might be misinterpreted as maybe
a little too ZEN, like I was searching for some yoga pose I've never
done, because I've never done yoga. That's weird..... I lived in portland
for awhile, you'd think I would have gone & done some yoga with those
tightbodied haltertop-wearing necktattooed gage eared dreadlocked mothers
who Needed their chai lattes with ricemilk, rolling their eyes in judgement that
I didn't, that I PERSONALLY didn't have organic ricemilk for that darling drink
that they'd need to get to that motherfucking yoga class. You'd think I would have
taken to following along, to grace along, to put down the smokes, all of the beers, the
intake & inhale to trade for the outtake, the long slow meditative exhale, but instead.......
period period period period period period & I like to live the long slow meditative death life
the one with Life beginning in a capital letter & ending with all the world's periods........
& so... I Inhale. I let her go out & through me. My sorry young lungs getting all the
more tired, all the more old. 20 days is plentiful mine. It isn't quite three arbitrary
weeks. It doesn't have to include a final weekend. It can & will include at least
a dozen meals, about a million snacks, multiple brevities regarding foods
eaten, foods craved, foods desired wished-for thought about, discussed
& that, that talking about what we put inside ourselves, that, my dear,
is learning how to Chill. But I am warm, so warm inside. I have a
slick thick gorgeous coat to lick clean to lick so dry, will you lick
me clean & dry, will you comb my hairs straight & slick thick
for 20 long days? & your tongue with its short tough hair
like a bristle comb like a pig hat like your rubbery snout
like your pink skin in the sunlight, mottled in the bow
of the springtrees, like the flowers still-lifing away
on the table, wilting, petals cringing, slowly
dying, but waiting, with at least 20 long
gorgeous promise-days of life left
not wondering, not anxious
but I can change the water
and I can brush the sludge
from their yellowed
stems, in forever
patience for
that period