my bad habits do not heal.

they disappear for a moment,
stepping out of a room as if
to take a call that they're certain is bad news,
and they reappear,
wearing a different suit.
brighter.
worse.

i bit my nails,
i found peace and stopped.
then, two months later,
i found myself eating paint.
the kind for nails.

clearly they are linked,
one i wear on my fingers
the other i wear in my teeth.

one is in a tan suit.
the other threatens to burn the tan suit,
and dyes it green instead.
ghastly green, the kind he knows i don't like.

my bad habits do not heal, as much as i wish they would.
they take the call in the hallway, and they cry,
but they do not tell me they cried,
because i assume they don't think i know,
and they re-enter
and sit in the corner,
take a drink,
and they start again.

it behooves you (me)
as you write this (I)
to maintain an air of transparency
to build a connection and yet stay opaque
to watch them move and speak and act
so many times that it becomes all you know (I)
until it's all the words you have left (I)
until you're not sure if it's even you anymore (I'm, I)
but it makes your words, less serious (my),
and your fear, less powerful (my),
when you say, (I)
"i am terrified of your attention because,
if it should continue,
which, by God, i hope it does,
there will be an expectation for more than i am right now,
more than i can handle, i think,
but i am not sure who i am anymore.
i am terrified of intimacy because it is a language i thought i knew,
until perhaps the tenth time i tested it out -
of course, i say tested as though i wasn't sure,
which i'm certain i was.
i am terrified because the words i say are part of the script,
my thoughts are not,
and your responses are not,
and the control i have when speaking is not the same control i have
when you reply.
do i have control when you reply? i hope not.
and yet i do.
but yet i don't all the same."

you shouldn't say that. (I)
it isn't appropriate.
they'll figure it out.
there's no time.
it's getting late.
you should rest.
(I)

i, lonely, sit in empty rooms
a lost cause to convince
for i am just a ghost, here,
and you do not exist

and i can float, my sheet, my gloves,
you clack and clink beside -
a pair of simultaneously
silent, noisy guys

i sit under the showerhead
so viciously aware
that I've been writing poems to
a quiet gust of air

the man to which i rhyme to,
to which my life i owe,
my love in life, my groom in death,
my garrett jacob bones.

in a few days' time,
i will bleed again.

in all the places where blood is concerning,
where blood should not be - at least, not visible.

every year it happens,
when the memory fills to the top of my body,
and it clasps me, my skeleton,
and displaces everything that is not
firmly fastened in place.

if i ask for a tissue, calmly,
with blood flowing down my forehead
where a wound is not present,
please respond in the same way i present the question -
calmly,
and with purpose.

i take my frown,
and the grief that hides beneath it,
and i drag it onto a wooden block,
and i teach it how to breathe.
is it then my child?

if i leave it here on this block,
will his wheezes turn to calm exhales?
if i leave it longer, will he learn to talk?
do i dare hear what he has to say?
to you? to me?

if i leave this grief on a slab
in a house in the forest,
will i feel guilt?
will i mourn?

is it my responsibility to grieve... him?

will i have anything left inside me
to do so?

divine loser
screams into
a tunnel
of his own
design.

he receives
a laugh
in response.

laughter used to hold such beauty
coming from human tongues.

laughter is beautiful when not
emerging from a cavern built to sit
vacant and silent.

divine loser
sawed off
my hands
to hold them
in a past life.

the mouth of the cave
is shaped like a promise.

the sink guard catches ice cubes
but moldy coffee grounds slip through
the mesh with ease.

one of these is the problem,
one of these is the reason i put the
guard in the drain.

i drink coffee more than i use ice cubes,
a lukewarm-preference i cannot shake.

the best cup of coffee i ever drank was one you made,
lukewarm instant coffee from a packet from a hotel you booked
two months prior.
you said this probably won't be very good
and i decided it would be perfect.

that may have been the problem.

coffee grounds mold in the french press in the sink because
i am disappointed with each cup i brew myself.

i bought a sink guard to remedy this.
it is the traitor.
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