Apartment 329 - Absence Makes the Heart Despondent

The toilet seat was still warm when I sat down.

                The bastard's been in here masturbating again.

The absence of offending odors

and the lingering heat in the seat

belies his extended presence here

without utilizing the toilet for it's intended purpose.

You'd think that after 7 years of marriage

it would occur to him that I'm profoundly aware

of what he gets up to in here...

because we damn sure don't get up to it

in the bedroom any longer.

Where's the intimacy in titillating yourself with a picture

of a woman that only exists on paper?

Because I assure you, she's not naturally that perky...

Those tits have been touched up more than a prizefighter's face.

You'd be amazed
how easy it is to photoshop perfection these days...

The computer can remove wrinkles
that God himself would struggle with.

Age melts away at the touch of a button.

Smiles can be morphed to transmit the proper seductive sentiment.

It's like crafting your ideal woman-

Frankenstein's sex slave.

There's no love there.

But, then again, there's no love here either.

For him

there's more in a minute of fantastical ecstasy

than a lifetime of true love and affection.
His life is mired in delusion-

However-
I was once told that the definition of insanity
was taking the same course of action repeatedly
and expecting a different outcome,
so maybe I'm the one who's crazy...

What I can't conjure is why I stay

when he's cheating me out of love at every pass
and he'll never understand...

Infidelity is not the act of intercourse,

it's all about intentions:

and by that rationale he's been leaving me since the moment we met.

Apartment 464 - The Inferno

If love is a fire,
this is a funeral pyre;

ashes falling

like a nuclear winter...

Like a blowtorch,
sex had soldered us together...

I'm too paralyzed by fear

to hope for something more.

Only in the black of night do we truly see each other.

We barely speak
outside the foul-mouthed foreplay
and passionate epithets exchanged

in our sweat-soaked moments

of collective agony.

Like so much of my life,
this has to hurt to feel good.

This is love to me...
true feelings

trapped within

chrysalides of enmity.

A smack on the ass must suffice
when a kiss on the lips can kill you.

I don't dare look her in the face.

There's so much I say

in spite of myself...

A litany of confessions

in my expressions.

Not that she would notice...

Her eyes are outside-

aimed at a horizon I can't see.

We sit

and share this silence

because it's the only thing

either of us still cherishes...

Apartment 380 - The Morning After

My girlfriend and my ex-girlfriend

follow one another consecutively

in my cell-phone directory.

It's as though the alphabet

is conspiring to ruin my life.

Apartment 281 – It has to be Written Because It Can’t be Said

I write, but I wouldn’t call myself a writer.
Most of what I’ve written
are the things other people have already said
that I just happened to hear and wanted to
make more memorable.

I have a half-full notebook
lined with words of other people and
when I fill it up I think I’ll just throw it away. Or burn it.
No need to keep a reminder
that I made a living using real writers’ garbage –
their throw-away lines that
sound so good I instinctively
whisper the word “fuck” because the
freak genius in their words makes me wish I had
been brilliant enough myself
to come up with what I’ve seen.

I’ll fill the notebook and throw it away.
Turn a new leaf and start
quoting myself instead of someone else.

Apartment 258 – Handicapped Romance

I know the time
by the sound of their steps in the hall:
it’s one forty-five
give-or-take a few minutes.

Most Saturdays like clockwork
she and a new friend
walk past my door
on the way to her place
with magnets where
their lips should have been.
Soon the magnets
will droop and find a home in their hips
and by the end they’ll fall away completely
never to attract each other again.

I don’t know how else to explain it
except that she must constantly
need a witness to her desirability.
Why else leave the blinds open every time?

And, of course, I watch –
not voyeuristically, but ashamedly
making sure he respects her boundaries.

And when I can watch no more I
unlock my door in repayment.
So when he leaves
(and they always do) she can
sneak in quietly
place the contents of her pockets
on the nightstand
and fall asleep next to me.

Bon appétit mon Coeur!

Like leftovers from an extravagant meal,
I thawed my heart and crammed it down her throat
like you force charcoal for an overdose.

I'd hoped it would enliven her
and purge the poisons plaguing her vitality.

She disgorged my offering soon after consumption.

She believes this means she's dying inside.


She's afraid she can't sustain
the buds laboring to bloom in the cavity
between her hips and heart...

Likewise,
I'm starting to suspect my gift was spoilt before I'd frozen it...

Apartment 202 – Disastrous to Want Him

Sometimes I think about fucking my roommate,
so I brush my teeth to make up for having dirty thoughts.
Clean teeth is the path to a clean conscience
but the couple on the Close Up tube always taunts me.
Their cardboard eyes are the only things in this room
that scrutinize the unburdening and the purgation.

Get off your knees. The toilet bowl ain’t an altar.
And tell him that your bulimia has made you better at giving blow-jobs too.

Looking in the mirror I see as a voyeur does.
Both of us bent over the sink like question marks
racing toward heaven and ready to stain the world with sin.

Have your fantasy. It won’t make the cravings go away.

And sometimes, too, I wish he had cancer
instead of herpes, so I wouldn’t become infected.

Apartment 415 - Mirror, Mirror

You can identify your own flaws by scrutinizing strangers...

I watched a woman
      from across a platform
at the subway station...

Straightened dishwater-blonde hair
glimmering in the subterranean fluorescence;
          striking posture,
      a dancer's figure,
and a thrifty ensemble that bespoke good taste
in spite of budgetary constrictions.

She extricated a circular compact from her purse
the way people in films exhume a pack of cigarettes...
    Then, in a very deliberate fashion,
she removed a pill and swallowed it.

              Birth control is like receiving a governor's pardon
          in the process of planning a crime.
              I resent this woman for that kind of indemnity.

I don't even know her.

Strange, how the mind can pass judgment

on assumptions of character.

It's easy to feel high
on the blissful soapbox of bigotry;

As that pill crested the ridges of her teeth
and met the soft tissue of her tongue, then esophagus,
my mind conjured a phantasmagoria of lewd images
on the surrounding subway walls.

          Sadly,

that's more of a reflection of my character

              than hers.

Apartment 311- To the Victor go the Spoils

A surging flood of panic, riding a wave of adrenaline

like a jockey clinging to a thoroughbred,
crashes through my veins at the sight:

She stopped breathing.

The steady undulation of her breast ended as abruptly
as plans for peaceable disarmament in a middle-eastern conflict.

It's ironic that her attempt

at liberation from daily trepidation
might have freed her from this mortal coil...

She stopped breathing.

That does not mean you should do the same.

You can view human beings as machinery.
A million intricate functions operating conjunctively
towards a singular purpose: to exist.
Life sustaining life for life's sake.

She was breathing to facilitate the circulation of oxygen
through her bloodstream and to vent carbon dioxide.
Oxygen is required to allow cells to produce energy
via cellular respiration.
Carbon dioxide is produced by passive diffusion of gases and,
due to it's toxicity,
must be removed from the body by exhalation.

However,
she stopped breathing.

You can desensitize yourself with logic.
That's not a human being lying prone on my carpet.
It's a malfunctioning machine.
It's a piece of equipment
that you don't own
that has ceased to function in any productive way.
It simply has to be removed,
and it ceases to be your concern.

The machine was supplementing its biochemistry
with external chemicals (see also:
Opium
Cannabis
Lysergic acid diethylamide)
leading to irregularities in its primary functions
and ultimately an abrupt cessation of its prime directive.

She simply stopped breathing.

This is nothing to become emotional over.
It's a fact of function.

Thousands of people die daily
for myriad reasons.

This is simply the final stage in a process labeled existence.
The sentimentality is a bi-product.

Existence is a label attached by certain machines
attempting to convince themselves

of a greater significance to their functionality.

You can divorce yourself from emotion
by disconnecting from labels

that would otherwise cause confusion.

Think of it this way-

Your lover is not dead on your floor;
instead, insist that your toaster is broken,
your microwave is on the fritz
or your washer/dryer unit burned out.

Perhaps it's time to purchase a new one.

Apartment 477 - The Phantom Limb

    I stanch internal hemorrhaging
by putting the inside outside;

      But I'm finding out
                that sex
          without love
      is a pantomime--

          an empty gesture.

                An open-hand slap.

Not an assault,
              but an insult.

          It's too hard to
shed the skin
        you left me in...
                    Even now, I love you
                more than I'd care to admit;
                    and so
        I curl up
                    like burnt paper
          with surrogates
        and memories
    to keep me warm--


              but it still feels like infidelity.

Apartment 409- The Box Spring Rebellion

I think I fell in love last night...

                  Unfortunately,
             it wasn't with the man I slept with.

A plaintive glance across a crowded bar
from a blue-eyed boy with a chiseled jaw
was enough to set my heart aflutter...

It just wasn't enough to make me walk his way.

I used to joke
that I would only lie in my sleep...

               It's ironic then,
          the greatest lie
                    my body
            ever perpetrated
                   involves insomnia
                      and a stranger
            in my bed.

How wrong can our instincts be?

So I passed-up the look in that guy's eyes
for the sake of making my vagina constrict for a minute...
        or an hour.
                  Or a week.

                  I gave up on a mystery
        for the sake of a sure thing.

Is that truly a sin?

I'm sure that some would call me a whore
        for choosing carnal gratification
over the promise of a meaningful relationship...

                I think it depends on your priorities.

I've been around long enough to know
I can fall in love with anyone.
        The test is if you can make it stick-
            (Yes, even that was an allusion to fucking...
                You think all women are prudes?)

Sure this meat-tube next to me
reeks of sweat and semen,
and my muscles ache from the exertion-
but one can't belabor the benefits of single-serving sex.
        It lacks the complications of attachment,
            and I get off without having to buy batteries.
                Win-win.

One conversation with a cute guy won't cure cancer...
          and it certainly won't mend a broken heart.

Swimming in orgasmic elation
   at least aids me in evading
the realization that most days
   I need my tears to see straight.

Apartment 321 - The Sin of Omission

I erased your voice-mails today;

      the only remaining evidence

      that we ever loved each other.

    I won't lie;

      they were hard to let go of...

      The notes I could part with-

        penmanship doesn't encapsulate you.

        The e-mails jettisoned into cyberspace

          without fanfare...

          The pictures were in the garbage

              before you'd even left the parking lot.

I've found the flames of rage

          consume indiscriminately.

      Like a bruise,

          black will fade to blue

      until it looks worse than it feels.

        Strangely,

        the voice-mails gave me pause.

Your voice emitting from that ear-piece

hit like a sucker-punch to a glass jaw.

              It took me twenty minutes to punch 7

                  and put the defibrillating pads to my amnesia.

Whoever coined the phrase

      easy as the push of a button

never used one to erase the last

                  "I love you"

      he'd ever hear in a voice he was desperate to save...

Apartment 440 - Falling Off the Wagon

Sobriety is shit.

72 hours in
and I'm giving

serious thought to

drinking the Listerine.

The bitch of it is it's citrus flavored.

I can't even rinse with that toxic concoction, let alone swallow it;
but I'm running out of options.

I finished off my other MacGyver drinks-
the Nyquil was the first to go,
followed quickly by my daughter's Dimetapp

   (which was the cherry kind,

      not the refreshing grape-flavored one)
and a damn bottle of Wal-fed
that gave me a wicked bout of indigestion.

My kingdom for a belt of whiskey.
Maybe a snifter of rum...

Anything would do because
I've broken out in cold sweats,
with the wind-up toy chattering teeth
and shakes severe enough that I can't hold my dick to piss...

You know you're bottoming out
when you wax nostalgic
for the drunken days
when soiling yourself was justifiable
due to your general state of disarray.

That sells it, I'm pissing in the shower.
It's all fair game in there.

I'm the shit that adheres to the bottom of the barrel...
pissing in the shower with my shoes on,
my pants removed as a cautionary measure.

Not that my life can get worse;

nothing trumps waking up miserable,
  sore,
    jobless,
      alone,
        queasy,
          woozy and
            drooling uncontrollably...

besides lacking booze to blame it on.

Apartment 179 – Emergency Exit

We had a love affair with fire.
You helped me burn down all my bridges
and with the rubble you built yourself a way out.

Up in flames. Now that’s the way love goes.

Apartment 159 - Sleeping with Past Perfection

Years ago the nightmares were so commonplace

they never waited for me to close my eyes;

it was always the dreams of

being happy that kept me up at night.

I grew up living in the subjunctive -

right on the corner of ‘Maybe If’ and ‘I Hope’ -

so I’ve always been aware that the future

belongs to those who live in the suburbs.

It’s been two years now,

since I woke up next you…

since I opened my eyes inside a dream.

I dreamed of a heart etched in concrete.

Trapped inside I was the A in P+A

but I became jealous because I was not the P instead.

And as always I stood inert, as if handcuffed

in between hating myself and loving the

dreams of myself, wanting to be first but

settling for anything I can get.

Dreams have a way of reminding and

creating something self-aware – a wound that

laughs at itself? – a dividing line,

separating what

was and what could have been.

Nothing more

than a single brush stroke

on my blank flesh. A reminder, definitely,

but also an opening

for blackness to seep from.

You kicked me out and I

left my heart on the doorstep – a

contemporary Trojan horse,

this time doomed to fail.

Apartment 315 - The Soundtrack to A Snap-Shot

I'm scared to death of silence.

These days

I'm speaking just to keep the thoughts at bay,

the way you clap at flocks of birds to drive them skyward.

I turn on the television and beg for a newscast.

I scan the channels praying for a televangelist.

I tune in to talk radio.
Anymore, I'm a fiend for infomercials.

I miss your clamor:

your constant hum-

the comforting white noise

acting as the metronome

to my insignificant routine.

When the silence started,

I couldn't keep my thoughts straight.

I listened to the faucet drip.

I noticed the refrigerator compressor kicking on and off.

I heard the parties across the courtyard.

I caught the faint reverberations of some 

           God-damned dog barking...

                                             Barking...

                                                   Barking.

There are so many sounds contained in silence-

it's suffocating.

Silence is a cornucopia of sound.

Is that the word?

The pilgrim bullhorn?
I struggled with that one all through grade school.
I guess that's not exactly what I'm trying to convey...

The silence is cacophonous.

That's a little better...
But what does that even mean?

I just can't make sense of anything.

I need your babble to anchor my thoughts.

Everything congeals when you're ignoring something.

These sounds are like schoolyard bullies I can't evade...

they push me this way and that,

depriving me of quiet.

Taking all my sanctuary.

I can't even seem to sleep
if I can't hear you breathing.
The steady rhythm of the air escaping your chest...
the slight whistle of some accumulation in your nasal passage.
All these creature comforts I crave
and can't sate without you.

It's like not knowing your leg is broken
until someone steals your crutch.
I didn't realize how necessary you were
until my world went quiet

and the chaos sought me out...

Apartment 420 - The Funk in Dysfunction

I danced with the ghost of romances' past last night... 

greedy fingers prying open wounds nearly healed;

but not quite. 

There's something particularly masochistic 
     in being romantically bulimic. 

You engorge yourself with love- 

filling to capacity, 

but expelling it emphatically

before it can sustain you. 

You're an emotional accordion. 

It's not as though you're suffering needlessly, though. 
There's a wealth of people profiting from misery. 
     Just turn on the radio from time to time...

   Pop songs are plagues set to melodies. 

     Honestly, though,

what good can come from the gluttony of love? 

It simply isn't enough to find joy anymore- 

          No stories begin at "happily ever after."

That line's a better closer

     than a fucking coffin nail. 

So I scrape off some skin, 
and call the last girl I slept with. 
     For the first time since that night. 
         After nearly a year has passed. 

I throw a text message at the suicidal chick 
that sent nude photographs of herself to my cellphone. 

I even send a note 
to the woman who gave me the worst head EVER.
You know...
     the one who's responsible for the scars???
Who basically lapped at my foreskin for forty minutes
and occasionally made actual contact with the head, 
           causing spasmodic contortions 
that thrust my dick directly into her gag mechanism. 

I figure round two ought to garner me a Grammy nomination. 

That's how you get ahead in this life: 
     you suffer so many setbacks 
that with even a mediocre depiction of events
     you're given fame for a consolation. 
The door prize at the rehab clinic 

          is 2 million copies sold on your next album. 
5 million copies of your bestseller fly off shelves 

      once it hits paperback. 
                     Easily. 

The way I see it, 
I'm one bad relationship away 

     from writing that ever-elusive hit single.
A few tear-tinged evenings away from a world tour 
     and a nickel-a-day coke habit. 

I've just got to find someone to put me into my misery...