_______ ________ "Forgot About Us"

i had to find you. i went to your job and saw your friend. i had always pictured her to be less like you than you made it seem. you two could be sisters. i asked if she'd seen you and her face went blank, expressionless. she wasn't expecting me - i always lacked the capacity to show up must be what you showed her. she told me she wasn't supposed to talk to me and next i expected a but...

she walked right past me to her car and never gave me so much as a second look. i wasn't close to disgruntled yet it was my first attempt. i beelined for the bank near your job. there i saw you candidly in line. for all the things we did together bank errands wasn't one of them. i grabbed your shoulder and you turned but it was a total stranger. i was beginning to unravel, this is where i left you, where have you wandered off to. i started scouring the neighborhood, i recognized a couple people that could recognize you, and they told me you were out by the hills. you weren't alone.

i cut through this office and overheard a lady say "i can leave whenever i want". i thought how bitter, who is she trying to convince, as if her words would cut away the imaginary bars that leave her drowning in an isolated island of responsibility. i also thought - how profoundly true, but she's nothing special, we all can. leave.

when i got outside it was raining, i saw two girls entertaining the rain. inspired i started jumping up and stomping my feet down in a series of puddles. it felt like i wanted to drain them, dry them up, and leave them empty. i don't know what came over me because i end up laying in a polluted puddle feeling baptized in the most impure of waters. and the feeling flooded me that there could be moments where i could simultaneously pull off happiness and life without you.

next thing i know your friend is driving us and i'm in the back seat unbuckled. i feel like i'm flailing but i can't even make out the motions of my body. i'm pleading with you to come back home, that i can contact the keeper of your heart. i'll make an arrangement and get it back. i'm yearning for a fourth last chance. i don't remember anything you say except "i forgot about us". right then and there i pulled a page from my notebook and ripped off a corner with just enough room to right your first and last name, and below it "forgot about us". i put it in my pocket and whenever i start to go down that road i pull it out and remember why i can't.

I'll Toil While You Take

all that paranoia that did me no good, didn't prepare me for what you would. memories that surpassed happiness roared in my mind, to let it all go, this need to unwind. all the time invested, and it seems that you left with everything good, stuff i should have took. my days feel numbered, i forget my name and age, the downfall of us is we were never on the same page. and in the back of my mind this heavy thought took president, over damn near everything. but your face it changed from what i remember, the serpent slipped out of your skin, and into the wind, i inhaled it. this broken me that still longs for a perfect you, a direct hit to my heart, the heart that is only now still beating from self medication and rigged with valves that don't belong to me. ones i took from past lovers and friends, they transcend anything i was born with. and stories that i remember from my youth. how i thought every motorcyclist was waving to me, and then it came to my attention they were just changing lanes. an allegory for us. can't you see it, can you understand. after the first two weeks, and with nothing panning out i called in a favor to an ex butcher in lieu of the taxadermist having moved down state for the warmed and more pleasurable weather. anyway, i asked the butcher to go easy on my manifest of reckless endeavors. i stepped in them willingly and stayed in. and without a fight the butcher gave me three rounds in the ring, a loss by knockout he insisted would be the best outcome. i must have looked just insane enough, because not having been raised tough he gave me the second consideration, the one you wouldn't. and when he sized up the organ, marking it gory with the magic marker, i saw just how battle tested my heart had been. the headlining act of my mortal self, i finally saw what i have done to it, that crippling effect i seem to have on anything reaching out for my survival.