A recording, unfamiliar, pleading
pathetic parasite, phone booth floor-dwelling
cur, do sixteen pushups and hit the rowing
machine like you used to, it won’t make any
difference in the run, because you fell
in love, and now you know such joy
as you could not have imagined, unless
you were in the middle of a fit or something,
in a paranoid fantasy you may have dreamt up
a story like this, where all you could need
is nearness, getting to know yourself is hard.
Because I’ve never experienced a feeling
like this before, and to have it all the time zapping me
to my reaching out, and to feel a yipe
singe, ya know, so I get over it but goddamn
it feels like a hell bite, like oh shit what did
I do? To let this crazy bitch, with more baggage
than a freight train, into my brain bleeding
ecstasy, making me drunk on it, and I forget
that I sound like a retard, it’s disgusting.
It’s not terrible, I know, and I understand
that you know what I’m saying, but goodamn it
I know what it sounds like, it sounds like
a grocer thinking “oh boy, now I gotta deal with this
shit I don’t need,” but that’s not even accurate,
it can’t be expressed in words because
it is so subtle I can’t really be sure I’ve ever seen it,
the genuine reaction to my glorious voice,
but I am sure, because I feel it the same way you do
staring into space, when you’re shadow is
a lamppost, I can go nowhere but straight
forward, into your arms a thankful grin.
Knowing yourself is worth nothing, for your love
is not you, holding reins with orders
barking, your champion is the spirit of dawn
and dusk, pulling you on chains to the dawning
adventure burning into the sky with a singeing
tail, chattering wordlessly with your old friend
in the darkness, passing out on Theta house lawn
where they don’t talk to you anymore, opening
the door to a knife cut horizon, carving you
a path, downward through time and space.