Absentee

Wake up to a pulsing morning.
Sooner than you know,
circles back to fucking Monday.
               Empty batteries.
               Empty call log.
               Empty stomach,
and ash-mouthed, empty-hearted anger
leaves its streaks on the walls
of the insides of the skull--
               it's a kitchen, that mind you got:
it's covered and crusted--well used I suppose--
but smells funny, needs dusted
               and swept
               and mopped
               and wiped down
               and shined up. Dress down
the absentees in your life--I'm sure you know how--
'til it circles back 'round--
               to breakfast,
               to Monday,
               to you.
             In your bed.
Fight the throb in your head and push back
on the sheets that still rush up to claim you--
slack jawed with maimed thoughts--though it's
late in the day.

Waiting Room

Out across the distance,
they'll be knotting up loose ends
and taking names from strangers
like suggestions, fading into
                               sunrise friendships

Waiting room.
A dreary day.
Silence couched
                      in thumb-smeared detail

What they found
was fresh enough
to stop the gap
                       between smudged-out Fridays

To remove their ceilings.
To rip off old, dead scabs.

Listen, now, I'm not angry,
I only need some air.
I've bloodied hands against these walls
and I'm done doing all of my dying here
                        So pick me up at 9.
                        Let me leak into the night
                        and help me saw through my tethering lines.

Here in this apartment,
sit and simmer in the dark
and bevel out the edges
of a batch of nights 'til this one's
                                        dulled out, hand-safe.

Waiting room.
An Autumn night
swiftly rose
           beyond these four walls.

All I've got
are window panes
to lean my arms
             and glance out at rainfall.

As it falls asleep and
snow flakes drop like old scabs

Listen, pal, I'm just hungry;
d'ya wanna grab a beer?
I've made fast friends with these four walls
but I'm done doing all of my dying here
                          Let me out into the night,
                          where the weather can't decide--
--between cold rain
                                                            ­               and lazy, half-assed snow.

Continued

9:13 p.m. on Wednesday
sitting, bolted to this bar,
next to tired tropes and worn out jokes
I've met a million times or more.
And the drinks all swirl together
and they start to taste the same
               going down
               or coming up.
          It really doesn't matter much.

If the streets looked any different,
they'd still bear familiar names:
trees and streets and Presidents--
Left turn, snowfall, sitting fences,
               walking home
and getting old. These towns all
look alike, with weeks spent walking
                in the cold.

And the salt on the sidewalks
might seasons your footsteps--
                                       sure--
a steady, frigid cadence
carried through like a threat:
shallow and petty, from downtown to home.
Alone on the sidewalk,
               it's 7 below.
And I don't know
               what that is in Celsius,
but I know there's no home
              
               for at least
               another block or 2.

I came clean in muddy puddles,
dirty slush and snowbound streets,
     in towns that look alike.
Tonight, I'm headed for clean sheets.
So close the doors, unbolt the patrons
          Thursday morning, 2 a.m.
And it never feels like half an answer
when I push my front door
                                                shut again.