there is something to be said
of our great failures.
it is an agreement of knowing we've been duped
by an objective greater than we are
and somehow not letting ourselves be swallowed.

i'm the first to say
that i am fucking crazy.
you are the second.

you will stay in bed all day
and eat canned cheese on your fingertips,
watch cartoons.
i will stay awake all night
moaning, convinced i'm dying.
i will forget what day it is,
and you will wake up before me, have to pace around a while.

there is comfort in our
shared losses.
you are invulnerable and bitter, but funny
and i am always falling apart, but sweet.
our messes make sense when they are spilling all over each other.

but when you sit with your knees pulled under your chin
on the edge of my bed, and cannot look at me
because looking at me will make you feel something--
i cannot help but resent you in your hardened avoidance of things.
i want to shake you, scream:
"this is me! i am only myself around you!"

when we lie together,
my down blanket pulled up over your head
and the fleece comforter wrapped around the both of us,
i cannot fall asleep until i feel your large hand
creep up the small of my back
and collapse somewhere in the middle,
as though you are holding on and i am settling into
your nearly untraceable need for me.

but when you are flinching from my touch,
and sleeping at the other end of the mattress,
and saying words in a voice that's trained to sound like yours:
"time" and "too hard" and "space" i am remembering the echo
of an empty room as my full-bodied scream betrays the silence of the walls.

and you are hushed.
you, digging into your canvas bag,
swallowing those two pills without water.
quieting the only good thing we've had going,
saying, "no, you are here. i am somewhere else."

10/25/2009

Posted on 10/25/2009
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