he said I can’t even pretend I’m not going to do every little thing you ask of me

we ignore the big things

he is the elephant in the room

Jae is in new york. I'm in bed. my pillow mostly covers the blood. there's fight in his blood, and blood from his fight.
he's so soft, so tender. in each and every way.

your cold feet touch me in the bed and i scream
you cook quinoa for dinner and do the dishes
you drive me to the hospital even though i do not tell you what for

i create a gate you wanted between the neighbors and us with a wooden pallet
i buy paper towels, toilet paper, bleach, and brita filters
i wash our clothes every day ~ every other day

you let me wear your socks and don't know i wear your underwear
you buy a loofa for my shower
you send me pictures of yourself in my bed with a sliver of light on your face from the window

i give you my key to make two copies
i text you the name of songs that you like on the radio and do not know
i call you every day as soon as i get off of work

you let me put facemask on your beard
you drive me around in my car


it ain't all bad

To See Your Bed in Your Dream Represents Your Intimate Self

that bed where I very first touched your face

that bed we fought in silence, and both stayed awake

that bed that I caught you sitting in, looking through my phone

that bed I slept wrapped up in you 

or cold and completely alone

that bed where I heard the worst story of my life 

that bed I kept my arm around you, and sometimes we cried

that bed I left because I could no longer be by your side 

that bed I was on the edge of when you first shut the door

that bed that's stuck permanently in my head because we don't sleep there anymore 

Sorted

how badly I need this sorted

how many different ways I attempt to tell you this is important

you suspend this

I'm hanging on your every word

they are horrendous 

temptress

you made me hate myself nearly as much as I wanted

I need this
how I groveled, how I pleaded
you were left satisfied,
and I was defeated

it feels so good under your palm 

the comfort, of your maraud

"you're a liar, a fraud

omission is your most dastardly sin"

from your mouth to mine I deeply breathe that in 

of course there are no words so we are silent

again

I tried to use my hands to mend instead
to reach my friend
I touched your back
and you turned to the other side of the bed

Mollie Puts Mollie in The Corner

Should I take the desk

Everyone is recommending

"It has a window so you can see what's going on"

It has a shelf, for personal pictures and small plants

Nobody puts Mollie in the corner but me

And I know just what the corner means

Just like I know just what the corner desk means

Settling

Settling in

Staying

I'll take all of your best accounts because I hate you even though you never told on me as you watched me steal so, so many toiletries and office supplies

I will single-handedly plug the holes in the sinking ship

Cause I'm on it and it's familar

Austin said last night what is the point of living if we will forget what a nice dinner we had

Within a month

He said why do anything

Because with you around

I finally 

no longer feel like a pity fuck of a friend 

When I tell you I'm awful you agree and it's okay because you are too and we don't like change

But I want to change

I think I want a corner desk with a window 

And in a few years I will forget this place

I will forget nice dinners and nice walks and nice nights and conversations

I will die and forget sleeping next to you and how I stayed at this job and left nothing for my grandkids 

Because I spent what little I made

On the roadside succulents I got with you

Before our nice dinner

We will both forget in November

When the small plants and personal pictures of you will be on my new shelf

Until I die

Just Maybe

you're sending me sexy pictures

I am sending you sappy poetry

and maybe just maybe

this isn't the worst thing

to happen to me

My Brightest Days

remember when we used to talk with our lips
not with our mouths, talk with our lips

baby i can see your halo

now we cry in the darkest nights in our respective beds
that's some perspective we got, and went unsaid

baby i can feel your halo
your halo 
halo
halo
halo

you said things haven't changed that much
everywhere i'm looking now i'm looking straight at your face
everything i'm feeling now, i'm sensing your embrace
that's from one touch
of your halo
halo
halo

baby i can see your halo

i feel what i always felt, the pure, the perfection, the safe
inside of your walls, under my skin
i ain't never gonna shut you out

you're my saving grace
you said things ain't changed that much
things remain the same
it's written all over my face
it's on you too, and this i know

cause baby i can feel your halo

Only Six Years

it's 2015

i swear it was 2009 like

six years ago

i'm still looking at your pictures

every song reminds me of you

our love transcended EVERY

expectation, assumption, mistake and tribulation

it was only last year

that i said to you

i very solemnly wished to fix this

in a text message

that you did not respond to

Weak and Half-Asleep

we like to pretend the other doesn't feel the same, as a pastime to feel sorry for ourselves

i've been busy
trying to get clean and pure, again
you've been busy trying to forget that friend
(you've been busy 
trying to get clean and pure, again
i've been busy
trying to forget that friend)

well no one has understood what i've been half-endeavoring to say 
for the last several years through baited breath

when we finally,
finally meet again

my sigh of relief so paramount will move mountains
travel decades
absolve lies
and dissolve grief

but until then

you're tired of trying but go on feeling rather empty and bleak
i'm tired and dreaming, and mumbling something rather meek

Living The Dream

I see you're living your dream

and rumor has it you've been talking that I should be living mine too

well I guess I thought I was on my way

and with somebody good

I made another mistake with you

Deeply

I need to know if this is on purpose 

conscious or subconscious 

it works like a charm 

and that terrifies me 

I live in a small world of love-based paranoia 

The Rug We Bought Together

The tea we bought together, the Ikea shelves we bought together, went and got from a beautiful woman from Craiglist, the gifts your parents bought for me, the curtains you bought for us, the candles I bought for you, the other rug that we bought together, the bed you gave to me, the records I ordered for you, the mirror neither of us remember getting, the map of Oakland we picked out together at Temescal Alley, the loofas we bought each other at the grocery store (believed to be thrown away), the print we found and never decided on what it was, hung it up twice anyway, the movies, the jars, the plates we got together and you said we would never need more than three, a few of the things that cannot be split in half, and I try to remind myself that it us, that we are like that.

Never Say Never or Forever

I wonder what if we never, ever live together again

what was this? what is it now?

I walk in the front door to him saying "look what I got". It's an enormous black container to move away from me in. I respond, "chill". He is someone that the less he talks the more comfortable he is, he's really chatty, he asks how work was.  I try to recall the last time that he asked me that and couldn't, I always want him to, try to get him to, he never did, he does now. He asks if I can sort which VHS tapes are mine and which are his. I act really normal which of course makes everything far more bizarre. I ask if I can throw away the lemon salad dressing. I saw he did all of the dishes. He says he has so many pint glasses he's never used, I offer to get him boxes. I wonder if this is the closest to a breakup I will ever get.

We talk and talk and can't say anything. 

Here Here Here

with you gone part of me is missing
and I never much liked this half

it was never enough

I can't sleep alone like this

I can't be here anymore 

Nice

He said he was sorry.

That it must be hard for me to be thinking about, and dealing with all of the not fun, unhappy, difficult parts of life
alone with someone who is trying his very hardest to think of just the contrary.
It was so genuine and sincere
I dismissed it completely.

Your Person

This must be what divorce really feels like.
Not to be melodramatic, or over-exaggerating, I just mean looking out at the world,
the tasks, the errands, the small moments, the social events, it crystalizing that you must conquer these things alone, not with someone else any more.
What a privilege, to have one person, I thought.
And maybe this other new person is an old flame,
but for the first time in a long time, I am going out on a weeknight, and I am going to chose to live.
(No one needs to know what it is I do with my time, I remind myself.)
Even when it is hard, even when the choice is there.
I should see decisions as luxury, choices are a gift.
Sometimes you wish to feel a way in which you cannot.
He said inexplicable, but I knew that he really meant unexplainable.


"Your car is still dead in my driveway while I wait for the tow truck
and you know what, I know I drove you away, but I still don't think it was wrong so I don't know what to say"

Concerns of Storage

we talk like adults

who have turned into robots

we crunch numbers

dates and totals 

you wish you could provide me with more data

I am trying to better my english

and you are speaking spanish, fluent and fast

if we went back

we aren't sure where that would be

Making Use of Our Time (Controlling)

Lying here helpless I realized that she was exactly two things to me, first, I saw her as a tool I could use to carve myself into the faultless statue I was destined to be, and second, I wanted to use myself as a vessel to deplete completely in attempt to supply her with that in which I decided she was deserving of, happiness.

Through the Door

Through the door, he told me that I throw an near endless tantrum every time that something does not go the way that I had seen it in my head, he was spot on.

I told him that no one cares about my feelings, would ever think of them, take them it to any consideration, and I was right.

He told me he can't.

I told him I know.