You have gone away enough.
33 times.
You did it 33 times.
Again and again and again you forgot.
Pissing in the litter box tucked under the bathroom sink you felt as though you owned everything.
You pounce on the little bits of shit as if the smell is enjoyable.
Don’t you want to remember what life really smells like?
And please don’t beat yourself up, not any more.
It is just that you have always had a choice. The only dead end is death. Won’t you turn around?
Please, we would really like you to stay.
And for the love of God stop shitting in the corner it smells terrible.
Fell in love with a girl, y’all! Buy her album and make her famous so she’ll come play in my city.
Sometimes I drink beer with a .doc open
One of those days you slosh around in
Like a barrel. Up there’s sky some shade of sad.
Here is you in your small box of nerves. Oh
I forgot I was writing this down,
Guys, I forgot I was moving my hands.
In Russia there’s a river I grew old beside.
I couldn’t stop coming back to see myself
Worsen. No, that’s not it—I lost a love there,
Returned to hear the ripping sound
Of water running away from its banks.
Water runs away from itself. We know
Where we are, because that’s where
We aren’t. In a booth at that smelly bar
Someone said “What a mistake to think
Who you are with people is who you are”
So ever since every corner I turn I think
“If that’s not me then there I am.” Too bad
Everyone can’t be as lovely and as sad.
The barrel I live in smells of mildew and sex,
Yesterday’s milk souring someone else’s mouth,
Somebody’s mother with sweat on her lip.
The secret I don’t tell? I sing myself to sleep
With a chorus: You’re the one that no one
Can desire! In dreams I scamper at the edges,
Invisible, harmless, black heart on fire.
