i blew the speakers out of the
2024 toyota rav4 that i let you trick me into buying. there is now
a slight humming noise that escapes the sound
system in a way that reminds me of your
not so sunny disposition.
it reverberates in the stillness of my
new apartment. i hear it inside
my head. i watch it loop around.

(my neck, your hands)

i see a blinking light at the end of the tunnel, it’s green and it’s still in memory,
ready for playback. i don’t stop at mcdonald’s for fries anymore. i don’t remember how to eat.

i drive my car in silence now.

my brother thinks i write poems about killing john lennon. the truth is it would
be much nicer if the obsession had died by someone else’s hand. instead i write
about how

there’s something ceremonial about cleaning up a blood spill. i’m peering over
the sink to see it swirl down the drain most of the time or try to
figure out if it’s yours or
mine.

this is when close my eyes and
i know lady macbeth weeps
somewhere holding chekhov’s gun
to her head. if i tilt my head
a certain way i see her face in the mirror and you can only
scrub and scrub until
the discoloration is dissolved, but
what if you don’t know how
to get this type of
invisible stain lifted from my threads?

when you figure it out, let me know.

if i decide to stop
i’ll be in the car
singing let it be
or yellow submarine
with
all the phonies
in my passenger
seat. maybe if you are nice to me,
i’ll let you click the button,

(your hands, my mouth)

it’ll be ready for playback.

i wish i was a string on a
guitar. i wish i was a hailstorm,
my particles crushing yours.
i wish i was a hotdog
on the fourth of july.

i wish i was a stop sign.

i wish i was the smell of coffee
and the vapors that drift
through your swollen
sinuses. i wish was
a vinyl sticker. so you can
peel me off
like a band aid when you are
done.

i stole this purse from the goodwill
on main by accident.
do you see how it dangles from my
helpless arm? the rearview mirror
shows me that i have so many lines
on my face now that didn't used to be there.
i place it on the steering wheel of my
vehicle
and watch all the people
drive away in the parking lot after work.

the water droplets form.

i think they watch me while i watch
them with some kind of
conviction.
i want to reach out and touch the invisible clock
that holds us all together.
i know it’s jagged and flowing
and it ticks and ticks and
ticks.

we can feel it bend like a web in the wind.

i wonder if they ever worry about these things like i do.

if grains of sand pass through
a glass tube
for an unpredictable amount of time,
i no longer want to invoke
a feeling you cannot replace
with the keys of a car or piano.
so i sing myself to sleep at night,

“time is a web, it catches us all.”

and here is where He told me i ruined
most days spent together wrapped
in a thick blanket of mutual
disgust, where i am the reason for such misery and
where i found myself to
be the biggest burden in the life of a smallest man
who had ever lived a life parallel to mine. and here,

where the river ends, so did my feeling of uncertainty; and the dynamic that
never served me. which is also here,
i find myself where we once
stood with my dog at my side.
now i hold an empty leash, once tethered to a companion that no longer exists except within my memories.
sometimes they’ll ****** out like tiny flashes of terror and lightness
and fruitfulness. this is how i
i know He never stood inside my love.

i walked a few miles by myself and
learned to let go of the leash.
there will no longer be fingers grasping for what i thought was once tangible. these limbs now stretch out reaching for something

much greater.

i cut up my apple then read a few
documents to sign my life away right
back where it came from,
notwithstanding the foregoing.

i am my own dog that
licks the peanut butter off the
spoon now.

i looked up what it meant to share
a traumatic bond and found myself in a
cyclical state between two resentful
mannequins strung against
time and other insatiable
responsibilities.

there was always an emptiness inside.

i put the knife down and think of
all the green onions i've minced in my entire life
to serve dinners in a home that felt like
a coffin.

we will have to try again later.

live a life like a little black disc
and rotate. warmly and popping.
i think a memory of this;

i know something eclipses your lips.

it wont ever sound as good as
a fist
being thrown against your
chest and so
that's how i know
the vibrational touch is just
static.

can you tell me
if we should
keep waiting for the system to
stay on the automatic
replay of the public
domain?

and
if so, this would include,
but not be limited to:
the never ending burden
of wiring between a disconnect;
laughing at some kind of understated
joke; or slight reference of culture.

i think of a memory of the impending.

it's sweet and bubbly, sticky and stupid; and
secretly selfish.
i think we would taste like pink icing.

but when we listen to the
lyrical content and dance around the
constructive ideology of a sunrise
within a glowing rectangle,
plugged into a wall, it’s
spewing syrupy sewage
through bluetooth airwaves, and
you stall.

that’s how i know you
won’t even tell me that, with
words, fragmented phrases;
or some unreliable catchy melody.

and
if so, i'll just have to tell
you it wasn't meant to end well.