from day one

i did not make this up,

but i was told
that this earth
that i walk upon
is only a sphere.

and all i know
is that i stumble around
all day
in this suit
made of skin and hair
and
the only thing
that i can prove this with
is a map of scabs
and souviners
surrounded
by the circumference
of everything
since day one.

as i walk further
down a path
of circles,
everything
that i know is
nothing
and it's the only thing
i have left.

for l.k.

you sleep there,
like the smartest person
in the world,

right now,
all you are,
are all my bedsheets,

and somehow
i always feel like
i wake up
in the bottom
of an ashtray.

you have the gall
to wake up
and walk in this room
and hug me
like you own me,
even if i'm drunk.

and in the morning
i know,
that all i'll have to give you
is a cigarette
and a hangover.

but i can promise you,
that if we try,
that one day
we will be the only two living
people left.

lakeview hospital

i remember that day
when the bulls drafted
joakim noah.

you just had surgery
and i chain smoked
cigarettes in the parking garage,
of that hospital,
somewhere,
on the northside
of chicago.

the radio station said
that he wore a seersucker suit.

they cut you open right in the middle.

i did not know
what to believe.

i remember the nurse,
joking
about something that i cannot even remember,
i don't know,
but i had a feeling
that you'd still be alive.

your room overlooked
a million skyscrapers
and i sat in that chair
as you rambled on
about the flowers
and the previous visitors
that could never comprehend
clairvoyancy.

in relation

it always begins
quicker
than i can imagine,

like a late friday night,
mid january,
in an empty pool hall,
in oak park, illinois.

her legs are legs,
and her ass
is the table.

i just want to go home

and the next thing i know
is that i'm jilted
in a red car,
gleaming
past a reservation
in the northeast corner
of arizona,
right where some navajo
sells rugs
on the border of new mexico,

we speculate
on the time
that we will cross
the threshold
of albuquerque, new mexico.

we were not even lost.

and two years later
i wake up
in her bed,
in chicago,
on the corner of belden & sacramento
and the only thing
that i can remember
is this dream.

threaded by four

somehow i breathe
and the only thing
that confirms this
is the noise of my leather belt
rubbing
up and down my belly
like some boat
caught on an ocean
at night.

it's only friction
and even the tiniest of sparks
will burn a continent
to the ground.

here
on land,
i've got my arms
plugged into situations,
hugged by soil,
trying not to make everything wilt.

i squeeze
whatever is left
of my eyes,
and imagine
a better atmosphere.

cycles

the lull
of heavy machinery
occupies the distance.

over here,
in a maze of beer
we follow a piece
of greased up genatelia
attached to a string,
protruding
from our heads.

the angles
never lead
to any cents.

and every once in a while
when there is nothing left
but the drone
of our own image,

the sound
of that heavy machinery
gets
a little bit louder.

lineup

you place her picture
on the freshest part
of your wall.

you place her picture
next to your last,
and the ones that preceeded
your last.

and for each one
of those,
you had painfully constructed X's
out of felt tip markers
and memories
in the shape of prison walls.

this wall
has always been there,
but the pictures and their X's
have been weathered.

you pin her picture
next to the others
with the clearest
of tape.

you turn around
and walk the hallway floor
back to your computer.

you respond
to her email
that she wrote you
from her vacation in spain.