I'm listening but I just had a random thought














I love it when you stand close

and whisper

while we are completely alone




nothing amorous or suggestive


just describing bits of your day

Mae is smoking

"So I walked up to this guy who was singing along to 'Born to run'."

"What is that?"

"What do you mean what is that? It's a song."

"of course."

"Who says 'what is that?' when someone is talking about a song?"

"If its playing someone does. Maybe something like 'what is that song playing'."

"It's not playing now."

"I know. I was just making a point." He said playing with his napkin.

She stared at him and then down at her hands and then back up at him."So I asked this guy to borrow his matches..."

"I thought you quit?"

"I made a mistake of starting again last weekend."

"You can smoke at Union?"

"No...well I know this place..but listen. This guy immediately launched into this huge monologue about himself..."

"Where do you smoke there?"

"What?"

"You said something about a place."

"Its a pocket where the cooks go. I'm over there a lot so they've clued me in...its no big deal."

"Its because your beautiful."

"Will you listen."

"I'm just saying. I mean I was never clued in."

"You don't smoke."

"Of course there is that."

it is calling



screaming at me from my mundane
I am uncomfortable
not agitated


feeling powerful and seen as more than ready

with a coach screaming
another one misqouted



and a direction unmapped

he believes there are two


but I've cleared the way to one
now I see only your strength
not my frailty.







if i am correct


I seek more to enhance your strength







you see your strength







I see my purpose

Anthony at the station

"So I told him my name is Anthony at the station...."

"Do you use the @ symbol or is more just the the word 'at'?" He stared at me for a moment then studied a woman who just walked past us. "That's a resonable question right?" I added.

"Yea. On my website I just use 'at'. You think thats smart?"

"What?"

"Using 'at' instead of @?"

"I don't know."

"I mean people know me as Anthony at the station..."

"You make them say the whole thing?"

"What do you do?"

"I say the whole thing because it is a proper way of seperating you from the other Anthony, and to mock you like the rest of your friends, because of your low traveled store at the station. We didn't think you would turn it into a..a way of life."

"Your jealous of my skills to create this brand."

"Yes of course." I said as our waitress filled our water glassess.

"I am a ass paleontologist."

"How's that."

"That woman was more of a Mastodon..."

I stare at him. "Ok you are creating a brand? Like Diddy?"

"I am epic."

He says this and then nothing else as I search his face. "What are you saying?"

"I don't know."

it is here
walloping,












and asphyxiating





me


throttling so I can see




what I'm not













i find the room





directed







i give







to finally experience

is anyone listening?












Doesn't mean that I will stop








I can't






I can only sit with my hands in my lap


















even though the box is so tight











no smoking
no drinking
no carousal












nothing missing











I am focused

Mae

"How many drinks did you have?"

I drunk till the evening went into a dysfunctional fade." She she said grabbing a crumbeled pack of cigarettes left at a table next to them. Fishing a broken one up, she remembered she didn't smoke anymore. "I need another vice."

"Alcohol is playing all the roles for you right now."

"You sound like my liver." She said reaching over and pinching a piece of his cake and shoving it into her mouth.

"No I am more like your pancreas."

"Hey I got an idea. How about we go back to your place." She lowered her eyes and found his.

"And what?"

"You know."

"No I don't."

"Has it been that long? In the past you would have...what? Commandeered a police horse and threw me on the back of it."

"Yea and we would've sailed down Michigan Ave. with me barely on getting doored by cabs."

"You know I changed my mind I want to go home and go to sleep." She whispered.

"Of course."

"I hate sounding like a man all the time."

Oceania

It is heavily unexplained







We are heavily libidinous

∫

"I like my men young."

"You mean your boys in that case."

"It's all about me." She said quietly. "You rudely pointed this out."

"Yeah…till it sunk in, but I was never rude."

"You are just, you."

"Yeah."

"But I don't want to know their stand on nuclear proliferation, Walter." She said spinning her tea with her finger and tasting it.

"You don't care about their take on the world food bank."

"Well I do care…"

"Just only if they could give a thoughtful opinion." He said sitting back and folding his arms. "But his opinion has to match yours to the letter."

"Your sitting there like some high school gym coach. You claim to have me figured out."

"You have yourself figured out and you're bored. Like some chess master playing chutes and ladders."

"What?"

"Huh?"

She stared at him for a moment "It comforts me."

She quickly drank a glass of wine

Pushed herself back from the table.

Adjusted the volume of the music

Fe ll back on the couch

Her feet dangled

she is looking

she always looks



at me



as if I am covered in sequins





I count her blinks

One

you, trying on pixels



sends me slowly into a fervor





in person it is to be experienced





completly distracted by every sense.

all

we are all married











Relationships pouring into each other



no walls holding them out












flowing love through different faces












we are all married

give
give
others give and give

It is whispered till it pounds

a drip



drip

in


our mind





love




is all




there is.

not to date you





sleep with you
or marry you

it is not the design










but to still love you



that is always

The work
if unobstructed by your ideas
is arresting, needed and will allow the focused to better understand themselves










the artist mangled and broken
not a witness to it

(seeks no help)


is none of our business.

i stand in your home











disturbing nothing,


as a light breeze announcing itself only in your silence




You are here




briefly

you are manic because of this

unbalanced

because of this

but I am here at your service and wait for yours














disturbing nothing





but yet i cause anxiousness,








tears,






anger




love




your self breaks you down

I stand disturbing nothing

hoping you stay home

crumble

and see this.

I need to unravel

I need to






maraud my history

--blot it out


and unravel

I need to unravel






I need to unravel to straighten out

to wear the humble of these spoils



only then will I see.

only then will my new seams hold my present.

I need to unravel

I need to unravel to be whole