torture

It's not that I'm not inspired.

I am. It's there.

- a greedy handful of ideas inside me, just itching to be tossed out into the open air.

but for some reason, those ideas just simmer in the background. Deep inside. They are only mine to ponder, sitting like a big, fat, ball of weight at the back of my skull - stretching down and across my guts to the corners of my corner-less heart, like a viscous, spidery sheathing.

It's like torture:

When you have the words
But not the pen
When you have the thoughts
But not the mouth
When you have the drive
But not the destination
When you have the passion
But not the release

So the screen stays blank. The paper stays inkless. And I remain trapped inside this ridiculous façade while I pray like hell for someone to unzip me.

Someday, I'll matter more.

cockroaches

ruminating
is probably something cockroaches do.
it's not for the likes of me.
i go deeper inside
so deep
you can feel city windows
explode like lightbulbs in the silence.
cockroaches,
you see,
don't hang in the air like that.
they've got ground.

history persists

i sit here in the tub
cleansing myself
in the hopes that it might be for you.
Nothing has changed
since peggy groaned about fever
and charles grumbled about desire.
i want to be hungry for each other:
and that takes a lot of guts.

the wedding

if i ever get married
it'll be in an old, greying castle
and our first dance
will be a waltz
to leonard's hungry growl
the audience will gasp
and weep
for all the moments of formidable love
two butterflies
caught
in a giant, breathy net.