Social media.

Two decades in limbo
every night with the faces I'll never see again.

No hard feelings
no kind words left.

Cocaine and conversation,
molly, sex, and sunrise,
tonight I burn to death in deafening
silence.

We are born alone
we will die alone.

So if energy cannot be created
and it cannot be destroyed,
then where will that leave us
when isolation and
divine justice
intersect
at
last?

Pointed
aloft on bone decaying
how deep do heels at times dig in.
Youth with one eye always toward the mirror
measuring life in postures
measuring life in seven and then eight
my chest caves in around an aging ballerina.

Once she danced to please her fathers,
then she swayed for the applause,
now she moves for the heavenly imperative
and the transcendental escape.

What good is a body when no longer used?
What life is there beyond the fire?

One eye always toward the mirror
measuring time in sundowns
bouncing babies and birthdays
pointed
aloft on bone decaying.

It rained in the City when I met you for coffee and
it rained as I caught my reflection
hungover
despair and depthless grey
merging seamlessly with the concrete clouds and sidewalks.

Then suddenly came color:
your face.
Suddenly warmth:
your voice.
Suddenly delicate:
your touch.

Momentary safety from the spray and the steam
and the sirens of the City
streets in endless agitation.

I don't remember what I drank
I don't remember what you ate.

I stood outside of an Asian restaurant waiting for you and
I don't remember why.

Later that night, you tried to kiss me
drunkenly in the alleyway next to a faceless Brooklyn bar
and I watched you walk away an innocent
amidst the cones and car doors
defeated again by my careless commentary.

To ride a sour candy tin
back home to Flatbush
and mercifully away from
me.

Trying with great effort to
call forth angst and
finding quiet contemplation in a
quiet room
count blessings like
bank notes
cascading.

Make it rain.

Blessings for
a fortunate man with
enough to get forward
and
enough to get
by.

No one said it would be graceful but
we are out here
nonethe-
less.

"Can I believe in the me before I knew you beautifully?"

What can a whole page relate that a single paragraph cannot say?
The paint on the wall is white and the top of my left foot is burned,
a hot drop of oil gone rogue,
a new scar to mark
the passage of
time.

This is how I have been for the last two years, I
didn't need the clown behind the podium
to tell me to keep away from strangers and
stay inside.

It's always been this way,
just this room and these same ghosts,
hope and shame,
long walks and thoughts alone.

Today the sun shone down and
I raised my face to see if God
was
listening.

Tuesday.

Rays of peach foam sunlight come through the open window
across the edges of the curtains and over my legs.
I watch the evergreens swaying in a rolling rhythm
to the music of the universe,
a song that is forever sung though
never really
heard.

A family wanders by beneath me,
their child in some monstrous invention
that steals my serenity and silence.
I don't particularly mind.
We are together in the enormity
of the ever changing moment.