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...