I don't know about this one
I don’t know about this one
After a certain amount of time indoors
the calendar on the wall
begins to look like a chess board,
and since starting college classes again
I’ve read five verses from a Romantic poet
and I’m now both tired and bored,
she messaged me first,
but five months later
and three innuendos this week,
I’m left to check my cell signal
or wonder if my time at home
has helped me to write a synonym
for what it means to be alone.
I don’t spend much time
thinking about what they think of me,
you could call it a false pretense,
but it doesn’t make sense
to waste time on other people’s sensibilities,
“Yes,” I say.
“She’s very pretty.”
“Yeah?”
I nod my head,
“The kind that’s troubling,
because you know
just what they’ll do with the time
that’s so precious to you.”
And I feel like I’ve written this one before,
you invite her over
and as you come through the door
she walks directly to them
and asks, “What’s this one for?”
The lemon tree
that I bought last year
never did die,
but the fact that
I didn’t have any other plants outside
caused me to forget to water it,
it’s like when you
finally get paid to do
what you would do for free
all the fun goes out with it.
Two beers at 5:30
do taste better
then three after 10:00,
and who knew before then
if I’d be ready
to look off my balcony
and have a feeling like happy
that’s in my heart right now,
very few in California
can enjoy a property with a view,
life turning into a one-way street
and we’re stuck paying for parking,
two steps forward to go one in reverse,
look back to see that your mirror
has disappeared with expensive apathy.
“I suppose it’s for,” I say.
“Keeping me busy
so that I don’t see
that a man like me
needs something
like the woman in front of me.”
She doesn’t get so much bashful
as she does become defensive
and moves back to an arm’s reach,
“Why aren't you directly answering?”
“Well what do you think about me
spending all my time writing?”
“I think it’s sexy.”
I let her ignore the fact that
it’s desperate,
needy, and at many times
depressing.
“Oh ok,” I say. “Let’s let it be that.”