living easy

call me Atonement
the contract-killer

the sarcophagus has room for one more,
you'd always lean in to whisper

11 at night, 

my cat starts foaming at the mouth like a rabid animal
goes limp in my arms

10 at night and you're whispering again,
drunk this time
we're both vindictive alcoholics
but all I do is beg, this time
pride is the first thing I lose in love

9 at night and I walk the needle-edge of life
the burning trapeze, my feet aflame
my eyes are dark and the sky?

Who cares for the fucking sky anymore?

"I have come to learn ants from my time in isolation,
they're constantly moving
occasionally stopping by one another
sharing pheromones
grains of sugar
and crumbs to bring back to the nest,
if you watch them for long enough
you can see that
they're no different from us

no different."

the magnifying glass massacre
the tragedy of flip-flops,
of rain

2 pm on a Saturday

I think of what you said over the phone
while I watch a PowerPoint presentation
of your life
while I watch it pass over a picture of you and I
smiling next to each other in a chain restaurant booth

I'm trying to hide my face in my shirt

and all your crooked teeth are showing

yeah

you were right