A Nasty Business

What business did you have with a little girl like that? She, barely 21 and you, nearing 30.

All your tormented lovers chastising you, it's not right. It wasn't right. All I wanted to be was near you, always. And all you wanted was your own, impossible happiness.

And so we danced this tiresome dance, so fabricated, so strenuous, running on the stench of your own selfish indifference and the fumes of my willful ignorance. And when anyone asked, I insisted, the most harmonious perfume.

To the Children

Stay away from broken people. You can't fix them; only they, themselves can. At the worst, you will be poisoned. At the least, you will waste precious time. Do keep company with people who laugh and find humor in all things. Don't be afraid to be close to someone. Be honest to yourself and others. Stay away from the dishonest. They have too much to hide.

Proposal

Not to say we will be, not to say we won't be, but if we were to get married because it's not when yet but only a tiny enormous fragile menacing wonderful miraculous solemn if, but if we were to get married, I would love you every day and for the rest of my life. Every inch of me for every inch of you. I would be unafraid to share every piece of me if needed and set aside my self-importance to enjoy every day we have and overcome every challenge we face together.

You'd be a dithering fool to think no other couple goes into it thinking the same, she smirks, scornfully, bitterly.

I can't change other couples but neither can I change myself. I am wired to love wholly and with little reserve, and if we were to be married, I would have nothing to fear and no reserve to have.

Also, if we were to get married, I'd make a damn cute bride. It'd be a simple affair with style for miles. Just saying.

Fresh molehills beside freshly torn, gaping holes in the perfectly manicured strip of lawn in front of the low, brick library. Neon orange cones, erect and scattered like alien plant life sprouted up, accelerated maturity in minutes. Laborers in equally blinding neon orange vests, up to their shoulders in the newly ripped wombs of dirt. Slowly, the veins of the city, exposed by their clawings. Kneeling, heads in the dirt, they resemble so many neon orange buds, sprayed over the lawn. By noon, sure to be matured to full cone-size.

Note: A shrunken airtight room

A shrunken airtight room rides with me today, remnant of a love expired. It sits in a corner of my pumping heart, gamely pulsing to an older beat. Love expired, not quite evaporated to Clorox clarity, yet. Into it my thoughts dip when a craving for musty pain hits and yes it does, more often than I thought it would. It's the satisfaction of scab picking, the carnal rush of a wound reopened. The meaty taste of constrained yearning, tinged with flutes of cheap beer and crumbling gingerbread.

Ditty

Contemptuous eyes, do not leave me
For purple dreams at midnight
Swimming under silver sheets;
My wants are quaint at best,
Yes, to make tired love against
Falling dusk, draped in fading yellow light,
Chamomile curtains flitting along
Cracked saffron walls, one dog
Baying in the blue distance,
Another's ears stiffening in reply.

Sneering mouth, do not leave me
For bitter ale, rolling heavy, soft as
Silence twixt deep sea fishes at rest;
My needs are rough at best,
Yes, to taste resolve and savory truth
On cold beach sands, your gentle hands,
Fleeting as blossoms in winter.

Stonewalled heart, do not leave me
For siren space, open doors to rooms
Of comfortable chairs, melting eyes;
My love is old at best,
Yes, and will not die today
For want of caress or care, largesse or fear
Of loss--born of lips on empty streets,
Words to fill your books until they burn.

Venture.

Reborn out of water's steaming fingers, just below boiling, mother's arms, liquid strength, wiped clear the tears, the snot webbed across the chin, dipping into the crevices of shoulder, armpit, crooked knee, clean, sparkling, calmed, no more hysteria of bleak inevitable harsh blunt truth, that you don't love me, that you never will, I was tired, the rough edges of my bones crackling with pain, now muted to soft worn glow, soft from soaking in the steam, soft bone, soft heart, thinking about all the little tricks you played to make me laugh, an infant at your funny faces, it made me sore, a lover forced to fight, I only want to be yours again, yours once more, yours for once, unconditionally, without expectation of gratitude, without expectation of life in the next breath.

And what were we going to do in Liberia anyway? Hunt lions, sip mint juleps, saunter about in the khaki sand garb of our imperial masters, our great-grandmother's rapists, our long-gone patriarchs?

Sweet thought, you'd asked me to go with you. Romantic expanse of new horizons, to be gazed upon by your eyes and mine. Of course I'd go, wherever, whenever. Victim, victor, ventriloquized body, we always did interesting things. Vegas in vernal, venereal undertones, vicious viscosity, violent virulence. I'm glad we were more than dinner and a movie, long walks on the beach, flowers and champagne. Though all of that couldn't have hurt.

Would have helped, actually. 24-hour diners, scene of the crime, the pancakes were curiously salty. He had a fake mustache and fucked his girl twice a week. A wholesome white boy actually, with a newly acquired kinky streak. How often do you do it? I'm the wrong guy to ask, he said. The other one smirked, Seven times a day, before my accident. His eyes glinting, sharp, predatory, except creased in genuine amusement. We finished our meals on his dime, expressing how sorry we were for his broken hip, his recently dead father.