Product

I wrote this napkin for you
I created it by mushing paper pulp
Pulled pieces from my parts and
Heart
And licked coffee onto it's outsides
So you could smell me
Stinking right beside--no--
Right in front of you.
Right under the plate holding
Your one-night standards
Cleaning up your grease
This napkin, she was fashioned
Just for you
By the polyurithane company
Don't ask me why
They can't throw me out
But you never exactly let me in did you?
Do you?
Pick me into pieces, keep me in your
pockets--
Who knows;
Maybe one day you'll even use me.

Manhandling Animals

You weren't smoking a cigarette, but the smoke curled around your eyes even though we were in doors. The drums ticked in the background, the clarinet player wildly swinging and jerking his arms around in time. The jazz bar was filled but our friend--my friends-- and you, we sat in the back where old fans and African figurines dorned the walls. The couchs were soft, and I didn't know why, but your drawl kept me listening and my cheeks hot when your breath came too close to mine. The artwork crawling down your arms towards your wrists marked years of terrible ideas and memories you'd maybe rather forget, but you are not bashful. My leggings tucked into my leather boots, my hair tied back in taught bobby pins and you felt every word I said, even though I didn't and don't know why: all I know is it made me feel stripped clean of everything I was wearing and everything I had done. Like you had forgiven me before you ever even knew all the wrong choices I've made because you made the same ones, and often times, worse ones. Cigarettes and caffiene carefully calculate all the years you spent with pills and powders, but you wouldn't pretend you were anything different. You wouldn't make light of the fact either. The fact is it is only fact, and facts are everything, and nothing standing alone. It's only when you've finished talking and your smile fades a little and your crows feet give their squinting happy eyes a rest, that I see right into you, an observative and curious boy peeking through the layers of years all encrusted and mended on top of your blood cells. I can't help but forget much of what we talk about. But I know it is different, and not at once deeper. But you feel me just the same. I never knew I could be felt without someone taking hold of a submarine to reach my depths. My intensity just some old strings left to be plucked running the length of my neck and down to my legs. But you didn't pull on my strings, and for that, I am thankful. That night where we met too many odd strangers who kept your lap for their sitting, we decided to laugh for hours at the most serious movie, and keep the door closed when you slept for 30 minutes and I for none. You held me close and kissed me. Held me there for a moment like you hoped you were kissing through to my soul. Your nose at the back of my neck and your hand held mine close. But I'm no longer the one who needs bandaids and for all the things I don't notice, the fact that I'm alright isn't one of them. I'm doing so well that none of this could matter if it all disappeared tomorrow. But the thing is? They won't. This is the dusty old path that my shoes decided to kick themselves down and you were there, long before I noticed you, plugs in your ears and all. Who you are and what your business is, I may never know. But you are there nonetheless, all smiling and waiting to take your part. I wonder how your years match and outlive mine, by six, and by what standards? Does your age match your mind? Have the decisions you've made waisted your time, or do you like drinking and not eating? Are you the person who likes to make up excuses? Or are you just as down on this earth as I think you are? Honest and open and willing to let things go. Willing to let thing be as they are. Because they just: are.

Bread Shop

You are
My little shop with no windows
No sun and no time
For things as useless as clocks.
There are fingerprints smeared across your cold case
Placed neatly Windexed in the center
of my little shop with no windows.
People form lines
Fingering your many pastry options.
You are,
Too many options for
Too many of them
To ever make up their minds.
(Just enough, maybe too few, for me.)
The flour floating in here makes you
Foggy,
And, my feet, they can't grip the tiles.
You are,
my little shop with no windows.
No sun, no glimpse of the outer world,
Just existence here, in the tangy air.
You are,
Everything I could've hoped for.
Here where I don't have to think or
Worry about too much air.
I can be me, and you can just
Hold me.
Because I
Work
Only
Here.
I sweep up your floors and serve
Well your many customers,
One by one, bagging your little pieces
With a napkin each.
Please clean up your mess when you are
Done consuming.
But they won't use their napkins,
And I'll continue to clean up
Your mess.
And you'll pay me in leftover goodies
I'll hoard in paper bags.
I tell my friends, I love my job
It helps me not think...Though it does take up most of my time and I can't seem to figure out how to say I have to leave soon because this is really just so I can save up enough dough so I can get out of here and find something-

Better.
More suiting.

My little shop with no windows.
You'll never learn how much
of a tourist stop you are.
How shiny and new and
Attractive you look from the outside.
Even the flour filled air
Lets everyone know how
sweetly centered you are.
Everyone can smell and taste
The lucious bits
Just underneath
That cold case in the middle.
The cold case
You tell me I'm the only one
Permitted to reach into.