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.