as I descended stairs,

crowded on the steps I slipped

and dangled in the air -

with eyes wedged tight I trusted that

his arms would catch my fall

and felt my fingers slowly lift

as gravity took toll -

when my limbs felt due to crash his

arms embraced me tight,

I slid against his body as if I

were something light.

His fingertips caressed my breast

as I ended my descent -

I looked into his soft young face

and placed the weight of my lament.

He promised me he’d take me to

a place where we could meet -

Bella Blue or Bellavu or a restaurant

called Eat.

I felt at once the tender heart of

love crowd in and I wasr elieved

that from the mire of awful loss

I’d finally be reprieved.

it cooled and then it came – a soft, steady breath, so loud

I was sure the breath was from my room,

but no one but me stretched the covers and

gazed out into the midnight gloom.

What ghost was sleeping by my side that night ,

haunting the emptying corners of my house

but remaining out of sight?

And why breathe with the heavy cadence of sleep

as if that breath would some company keep?

Perhaps it was no ghost, but I who lifted from my clammy limbs

and against my will and physics invaded dreams.

Was it you who I heard giving soft breath

until it ceded away into somnolence or death?

balled into fist size lumps and bras with twisted straps -

the cacophony of crap which I cling to as if my blood

pumped through the hand of a mug or clotted

in the dog eared pages of books which took the better part

of my monthly wages – these sentimental items

which will become the fetid dirt of a landfill and, one day,

nothing but a pale brown silt that catches on the breeze

or which lays to rest on an ocean, how does it cause

such emotion – my devotion to these goods borders

on neurotic, the chaotic surplus of my existence is

like an army of mute sentinels who I order about

and rely on to keep my arms tied to the invisible strings

which buoy me around and make me a living, breathing, thing.

Without them, I am stripped back, forced to negotiate

over what I truly love – the line, cut, the frill of lace,

one colour but not another on the contours of my face -

and within I am compelled to see how much of me has substance

and how much is dependent on material vanity.

Naked of all belongings and poor of a decorated nest

I seek out a calm contendness in simple things and

learn the art of having less.

you were going to save me from my personal hell.

What girl wouldn’t want that? The happy ending

that undoes all the hurt and pain she’s befriending.

I might have been a little fool, but my thoughts were good -

I thought, finally, I was loved and understood.

And yet, it disappeared in a disgusting mess – I

closed the door and bent over, crying at your desk -

and later you arrived, unannounced, at my place

and I pushed you out, with a cold look on my face.

If only you knew how much I blame myself for this,

but perhaps you do, because your barbs never miss.

I hope you enjoy your quilt and I hope things end here,

because it hurts me too much when you’re near.

You Should Date an Illiterate Girl.

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Just, wow.