time is tumbling towards us

Disquiet nights and thoughtless turbulence -
disturbulence -
- it leaves me blinking into the grainy darkness.
There are three boys in my bed (twelve legs between us).
If I am careful, no one will be the wiser.
It's 3AM and "trying" to sleep is a perfect example of futility.

Yesterday afternoon I hit a wall. Expecting to stumble heavy and dormant into sleep ends with nothing but disappointment . Energy reserves caked with torpor invite only vague disinterest in going the "extra mile."

I need my clock to reset.

-- One final job interview. Did you know these things take three days? THREE DAYS.
That's three days of being "on." Being "charming." Being "engaged." Being attentive, and thoughtful, interested
(and interesting).

But how can I be interested (and interesting) when all I want in the world is to know what in the world I want?

___________________

We are so glad to have you. 
He reaches for my hand. 
Welcome back. 

Push Replay

Do you wonder what might have been?

Eight years later.
Metal band. Ruddy beard (Van Dyke). Extra tattoos to make it legit.
His face is familiar, but together we are out of context.
He thinks he still knows me.
My wicked breath in his ear,
                               I like to be bitten.

Sunrise recession, an escape back to Atlanta:
Salty with sins and the smoking gun of mouth-sized bruises across my chest, down my legs.

I think he expected some sort of love story. He wanted to sweep me off my feet.
I didn't want to be saved.
It should have ended there.
(But it didn't.)

xx

This Is How

Absentminded musings of time
leak between life and shallow pools of
unfamiliar sex and twilight cocktails.


Mingling among casual context,
chance surreptitiously takes shape
in the serpentine ribbons of heat unwinding
from citrus and chamomile and ceramic.


Inaudible whispers of pause separate the instance of
one thousand twenty nights,
and thoughts heedlessly venture forward,
slipping past well paid wardens of weakness,
to a time when the green sprinkles we bought yesterday at the grocery store
are expected to expire.

I don't think he noticed.