If you start and end within who I am then who you are ceases to be when I do.

This is good for some people, most people even.

In a world where everything we do is dictated by a single idea of definition, we cling to be defined.

This is not something I think I can live with.

But, I can live with you.

More so, in fact, than I can live within the idea of you, when the reality of you calls to me.

I will always yearn for you.

You have taken my form and smashed it to pieces, effortlessly.

I watched as it loses all predetermined notions, experienced a shift of paradigms.

And I smile.

Shattered, the confines of my mere existence are up for reassessment.

I allow you to assess.

I allow you to define.

I allow you to allow myself to submerge in a series of opposing thoughts.

I allow you to allow myself to feel, in a way unlike ever before.

I allow you to allow myself to cease to be.

And I have ceased. I have been seized.

I yearn some more, learning some more, and watch my whole being unravel in front of you.

Naked, unflinching, in front of you.

I will live for you, even if living with you means living within the confines of your mere existence.

For with you, I shall never cease to be.

Not anymore.

- Staring at something eternally beautiful.

I was beat up.

All the time I get beat up,

and there’s pain everywhere, every time.

I’m a buffet table and everyone’s feasting on my ass.

They’re singing songs about the incredible shitstorms I’ve been through,

with a smile.

A smile. That’s what we need at times.

A fucking smile, in the face of the world’s practical jokes…

a fucking smile.

I would smile, but my teeth have been knocked out.

On my back, and the backs of people like me

the beautiful people of the world lives.

I’m tired.

I’m tired and hungry and angry.

Why would I want to fit in, after this?

This invisibility, this shit,

is my prison now. I rot from now on.

-I was just waiting for my shift to end.

neither do they…

and I don’t feel it the way they used to make me…

and sadly, that’s my problem.

Monotone. Monotone.

Give my monologues a bone.

Think for me. At me.

Quiver as I do.

Touch me the way you used to.

No more fleeting rock and roll nights.

No more early morning fights.

Not like they used to.

Not like they were meant to.

-Drunk. Listening to a not so shitty rendition of “Smoke on Water” by the local “musicians”.

I am a lover, not a fighter.

That little phrase didn’t come in very handy as her man smacked me upside the head with a closed fist. I was disoriented. How could I not be? The only punches I’ve taken in my life were the ones that came in a bowl.

It didn’t quite hurt of course. Not while she was there, looking on with fright. I picked myself up, trying not to have any delusions that she was worried about me, knowing full well that the only thing she feared were the ramifications of her own actions. I got up, not out of bravado, not out of some misguided notion that this was actually going to impress her. This was not going to make me look like a bigger man than I actually was. I got up because I knew full well that this was going to happen, from the moment that she told me she was married and I told her I didn’t care. I was a sick, sick man, and I was going to take my medicine. The next blow struck me in the gut and I folded.

He screamed insults at me, urging me to get up and fight back. Again, I got up. Of course I got up, though this second time it took me a bit longer and a lot more effort than I expected. I reached into my jacket, pulled out a cigarette and lit it. I had to focus on something else aside from the pain and the thought of more pain. I needed something to dull my senses or else Id be throwing up all over my shoes, noticing more than a hint of blood in my vomit.

I could fight back. I knew I could take him, but why would I? I’ve done everything in my power to be with the woman he was married to, the woman who would most likely be the mother of his children. He had more than adequate reason to inflict as much pain as he wished. It’s not as if what he can dish out could possibly be as bad as what she had dealt upon me. Always there for me. Joining me in meals and movies. Laughing at my jokes. Listening to my stories. Pouring her heart out. Allowing me the enjoyment of her mere presence. Her bittersweet presence. Never turning me down, though never actually reciprocating. Just an inch or two beyond my arm’s reach. I could’ve killed for that extra inch.

No, what he could dish out wasn’t as painful, but it was pretty damned close. He knocked me down a third time, and punctuated it with kicks to my midsection, probably a couple to the side of my head. The beating had become a blur by then.

The last thing I remember was seeing her walk away with him, all teary eyed and apologetic, professing her love to him and loyalty, as if I wasn’t even there. Like I suddenly transformed into a slightly better dressed part of the asphalt. It quelled his rage, of course. She could quell any man’s rage just by showing the tiniest bit of affection. Hell, if she had given me one tiny smile, a grin, a smirk, a look, even a passing glance, and I could’ve been up on my feet and ready for more.

Instead, they walked away, arm in arm, well on the road to rebuilding a broken marriage. I lay there, looking at them, trying not to dwell on the irony of it all, the irony that if I had just backed off, waited for the right time, their relationship would have imploded and would’ve been over. I could have just swooped in and picked up the pieces.

Instead I was coughing up blood on the street, silently hating the fact that my involvement may have relit the once dead flames that was their love.

I just lay there. Embracing the lonely asphalt. I no longer had a reason to pick myself up.

and I thank you for trying,

to be not you, slowly killing you, slowly dying.

You are loved in a sense you won’t see.

You are loved in a way I could never be.

In the dark with me, you survive,

yet you’ll never thrive,

I could never give you what you need to be alive.

So hold me, as we sleep, as we weep,

You are who I want and yet cannot keep.

-Same as the previous poem, “Last Bet”.

My last bet,

Stay calm my lovely pet.

Don’t worry, don’t fret,

I’ll be like I was, the day we first met.

My words meaning more in deep quiet,

Shuddering at the onset,

Screaming for my own debts,

My mind flowing like a faucet,

Caught up in my own net

Yeah, this is my final set…

The final droplet,

The last ride in my love jet.

- Written last night, the 4th of November, or was it the 5th already since i believe it was after midnight? I don’t know. Aplaya had this band that was so bad I just has to write distract myself. They played a mean version of  “Crazy Little Thing Callled Love” though.