Love in the 21st century

I want to paint your body
with expectations -
attempt to own what isn't mine,
plot your course and
man your rudder.

I want to sip jealousy from
an insecure cup
spit every word you say
later on
back into your face with prejudice.

I want to build a silent case against you
noting every slight while I smile and nod,
then,
when the house is burning,
throw the file,
and you,
on the fire.

How odd that we would deign to tell
another who is good and
who is off limits;
that we would sacrifice our entire lives for
salt and semen
and the insincere ghost of
fleeting
contentment.

As for you,
have your lies
your lie down
and lay about
under lemon scented linens on a Sunday morning,
swear oaths you'll never keep
and dream of futures
that will never
come.

I'll keep watch
and listen for your call:
hysterical, drunk, and broken,
saying its over
and this time
its for
good.

No one writes and the telephone is a paperweight

You tell me all about what luck you have
to have all these hearts surround you,
to be
unaware of solitude,
touched and handled,
never crushed by quiet,
always a full house with matching
heart.

I hope it never ends.

Time,
racing ever onward,
shakes loose the tepid grip
of lukewarm hearts.
There aren't many who have the fortitude
to bear your burden with you
and,
anyway,
why should they?

I used to dream of forever before I stopped believing,
but the human heart just doesn't have room
for anything but adoration for its host.

I won't pretend I'm different.

If I martyr myself to art maybe
they'll give me another shot.

Then I'll start over.

I'll eat all my vegetables,
letter in High School,
get the girl,
become a captain of industry
and run
for office.

I'll be a really great guy and
everyone will
know my
name.

How lovely it would be
to sleep the unending sleep.

When we were children we were blameless.
Our drama was the stuff of skinned knees
and through the day we were princes and,
after dark,
thieves.

Later, we learned our place.

They gave us our list of requirements -
rules
for this or that,
and they branded us criminal, troubled, and
unfit to serve.

They put us in categories and typed our names into databases
with our sins to forever chase us
down to the gates of
hell.

All men are created equal yet
are destined to be unequally judged.

Here is my back
and these are my knees.

I'm down to just one arm and right ankle,
but I'll hand them over too
for another overpriced gadget
and a dozen more channels.

I don't trust nostalgia.

Were you as pink as I remember?
I don't see how that matters
anymore.

I don't have a single memory of you
sitting across from me
making plans.
Just naked flesh
warm and wet -
drinking you in like I'd never seen
water
mouth on your clit like
I'd never had
food.

Its not often you see such rapture.

Your eyes would roll back like
there was a secret in your skull,
two solids in the corner pockets.

In a photo finish you
are the second best I ever had.

But don't worry about the other one
she was a godless animal.

There is a pond behind my building
and I watch the rearing
of a third generation of water fowl and
I like it very much.

I wake up each day and
the lawn is manicured and the sky is blue
and
I like that too.

I have a full closet of fabrics
and plenty of shoes.
I take each pair out walking and
I like them.

I put new strings on my guitar
and they vibrate and sing
and the mood is mellow
and I like it.

I eat food that I cook
and I'm not half bad.
I make dinner for my family
they eat it and say,
"We like it."

There are fresh tomatoes in the sun.
The farmer's daughters gather plump, red strawberries.
The men in the fields cut asparagus stalks
sold four dollars for the bunch.

These days are dull,
nothing is consumed by fire.
In this impermanent tranquility
I am
satisfied.

Frescoes on your headboard
the sky spreads wide to greet you
your purple linen life
reclining
on the skin of starlight.

Cinematic fashion
how lovely is your neckline,
if all of life was thread you'd
stitch my lips onto your collarbone.

Here is an afternoon Parisian
fit for lovers and Renoir
an intoxicating melody ignites the air
the flowers around us melt into a kaleidoscopic cacophony.

If fate were to strike me blind,
no matter,
I've seen:
the ebullient sun,
azure sky,
and your warm
and easy
smile.

Each one of us a symphony for no one.

How deep each individual cut
how violent the fibrous tears
blood running crimson on the altar
filling our ears,
flooding our mouths,
you drowning in me drowning
in you.

Salt, fat, acid, and heat
jawbones snapping and cracking
gnawing on flesh and blubber
the insatiable feasting of the amoral
on the hopeful, the sensitive,
the vulnerable, and the
weak.

Diving down into the abyss,
seven billion eyes
sinking ever further below hell's horizon
trying to find the perfect filter
and humming their country's anthem

hoping to be the first to show the devil
the error of
his
ways.