let’s stumble, crawl, perspire in a new day where
life’s a little bit easier, where I’m just a little less alone
I want you to want me, not need me, don’t say
‘can’t live without you’
or I’ll cringe and stutter and
pass out beneath the florescence
above me
blinded into submission by the droves of soldier cans and boxes
stacked and ready to fall
I see your silhouette near the pile of firewood out front
and watch the cigarette smoke flutter from between your lips
I feel my legs begin to shake
as the pressure of your gaze settles upon me like
a box of many things all collected together
all thrown into one
for me to carry as the nighttime mule
that brays and cries for release
there’s something wrong when the only pleasure is found
at the depths of a bottle and
there’s something amiss when staring into the future
is like staring into a clogged toilet in a public restroom
I can’t shake the reflections of dreams that pop, shudder
and tremble inside my mind, behind the eyelids that cover
the blue marbles inside my skull
and I can’t reject the sudden feeling of relief, the sudden
appearance of comfort whenever you’re near
your smooth, easy voice resonating through my ears
in perfect syncopated dissonance
I cannot listen
yet I cannot force myself to close you out
to send you away from the little fantasy inside my synapses
and I mutter to myself,
‘come on, baby, come on, read my mind’
but life is never so simple
and things are never so easy as to be transmitted through
wavelengths unknown to physical science
I’ll have to settle with dreaming
and hoping that one day, as I mutter of misunderstandings
and pure uncomfortable unhappiness
you will step up behind me and put your arms around my waist
and I will say,
‘what are you doing?’
and you will respond with a kiss
at which point, things will become a little bit simpler
and we’ll have stumbled and crawled into a new day
and we’ll lie there, moving, perspiring
whispering and moaning
and forgetting ourselves
wrapped up in the absolute harmony
of euphoric bliss.