Experiments

I took a fresh breath of bathwater before I dry a martini
to lose at yet another game of Omaha hold 'em down before
they run away too because the world is too dangerous for
those girls who bleach their upper lips and cross their legs
at the ankle. So I'll just watch the window that holds the world
while I move forward and everything just goes by, hand in hand
with all the military men and women who protected things I
never wanted in the first place because it makes life so much more
complicated than it has to be, we could all be free of these
ties that bind and limit our lives but we stay sill as windows.

Realism

We all grow into the mistakes we made years ago, saying how we were meant for more, bigger, better things when really our own minds and problems keep holding us back, further away from where we would like to be.

So I watch out my window as the rottweiler takes his morning walk even though
the rain is hard, his owner wears a navy slicker that helps moisture stay out and his hands free to clean up while my window is dirty and my mind shrinks back when rotary phones ring because I am too lazy to modernize.

Past

The power of blank space
has truly been announced.

I doubt I will ever
look at the whites of eyes
the same way again.

One life can not tell a story.
It is chapters and words
that are wrought together
with emotions
and old love letters
that were never sent but
instead found
when moving out of one apartment
in place for an older one.

These overlooked and garbage thoughts
were criminal in their misadventures
and dreamings of unbelievable cramps.

I should have thrown it out long
ago. But it was here
waiting for one of us
and for some reason he chose me.

(untitled)

The candle was a gift.
The first time I burned the wick,
I left it lit too long and the wax
stained a table my grandmother owned.
Scrambled mess turned into a quick disaster
that I knew would always remind me of
that gift
and you
and how things never really ended,
they just stopped.

Vacation

I dreamt that both our windows were open
and while I watched you undress
you watched me, watching you.
A funny cycle of voyeurs who
had no idea how to stop
except for repeated cleaning of our
panes to keep watching.

When I told you about the dream,
you laughed saying,
that wasn't a dream.
We used to live across the street from
one another
in a past life.
After you said this, your chin shook.

You got another drink and left me
thinking about the dream
and past lives.
So you were a liar,
I know that much,
but I somehow still cared
about all your stories and tails.