i ruin awake

tv is on
bad tv
everything that is bad about tv is on and i am up
torturing myself
because
on
the other side
is you
arm over your head
fingers chasing cracks in the ceiling on tightrope
head in profile
the black O that plugs your ear
eyes me
like some liscentious friend
turncoat

i want nothing more
than to be warm
it's a cold start for may and i can wrap around you
but i can't sleep
never sleep
not now
for a couple hours
still

you shift and snore
you hate my bed

the tv is black and white
with the contrast down
as dull and stale as jokes from California as dull as
i need to sleep

maybe i won't dream tonight
just feel
your black shirt and my plaid pants
worn to rags and thin as the words that pass from slumbering mouths
a million blankets and comfortors and cats with entitlement
i stay my throat
swallow one last
and force my eyes up
into the recesses of skull that render them useless


when i sleep
or wake
(i'm not sure)
when my eyes close, then open
(but maybe not)
i pick up my blades
again
my whips
pistol
5AM shadow
it's time to fight again i think
out

the streets swallow sound and
the alleys have my collar
there is a man
dressed like the line in the middle of the road
with sparks at his fingertips
twin wires in each hand
eye to eye
with a motorcycle
itself dolled up like a legal pad

(it must be his
how else could they've
coordinated?)

nothing for me here
a man hotwiring his own bike
somesuch silliness
duck into alley
some skinny kid
a Polack sitting Indian with a shotgun
between his legs
which're long and sinewy like spiders
he doesn't see me
doesn't see no one prolly
the barrel props up his jaw
and
chin falls when he removes it to cock
fires out glass breaks
no other sound
just
bbs
nothing interesting ever happens
i strangle ex-boyfriends
ride guilt trips like greyhounds

i've never seen the dude who mugged tania

(i don't remember the last time i saw a black person in a dream either
maybe i don't
definitely Duo, definitely Nikole
but they're only half, and
when was that anyway?)
I go home and go to sleep
or wake up or go to sleep


I open my eyes
(or don't)
she is there
the alarm is going off
two alarms are going off
she'll leave before me
and we'll both get there late

i miss class
i'm so much better about it this semester though
i buy a diet pepsi/i nurse a pepsi diet
coz there's no better option

pour it in my eyes
try to
wake up

2:52 PM - 1 C