love is so short and forgetting is so long.
2012-08-20 10:05 p.m.

i forgot that giving a fuck is even below whoring. not that i give any fucks.

i found an old poem i'd written tucked in a book. i think i was 23ish when i wrote it. it was a time ago. i raged nightly at people i loved which is why i don't have his and her towels hanging in the bathroom. or even an engagement ring to give back. all the same, its clearly not a good poem. its kind of horrible even for 23. just overthetop. kind of like when you only care to write about you, and you get your descriptors at the dollar store. kind of like a bad cover of your own song.

oh well. i'm sticking it here. this is not a placeholder. its a doorstop.

It's summer's sweat
beneath my purple afghan.
We keep ourselves covered
because I am convinced
being unseen makes it more innocent,
even though we are heavily outlined
and my big toe has forced its way
through a hold in the knitting.

I quietly confess my story about the South African,
the high roller,
whose words I couldn't make out
even as I watched his lips form them.
I tell you about his white Mercedes,
his flashing of money,
that I almost said yes.

And now, in our tenderness,
you say you don't believe
that I was ever one
to spend nights smiling desperately,
to fall asleep, blank faced,
to be scribbled on,
and wake up,illegible.

Then one of my draining moment arrives,
when I confuse you with the boy before you,
or two boys before you,
or ten.
Beckoning my memory,
you touch my elbow
to remind me its just you, Benjamin,
as if its the same elbow
you last kissed.

In the instant before
I slam the door behind me
it becomes visible
in the way I hold my head
higher than is necessary,
in the way I wear graffiti too proudly.
And defeated,
you succumb to belief.

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