cobblestone & tangerine

i met this girl who is probably my best shot at happiness

in the traditional sense of contentment and joy and

not feeling like total shit all the time.

she likes to drink good whisky and has a kind of wit

that takes getting used to.

i thought i was clever and i laboured under that impression

for years

but she has put me in my place with nothing more than a

word and a smile and a stare

and an offhand comment about how to learn

and what it truly means to learn.

the worst thing is that i cannot shrug nor shake her off

as being too good for me

as she would have me if she could but

her heart is in pieces, i think

so I’m left in the lurch without a leg to stand on

or a pot to piss in and i’m running out of metaphors.

she has these pale bright blue eyes and light brown hair

and she looks a lot like a lot of the other girls i have loved

but its different because she’s not just beautiful she is

strange and weird and all of those adjectives that

i have noted down to look for in love but that scares me

because i made that list to prove there’s no such thing

as a soulmate

because fuck the one i’ve had twenty-five (or so)

and they’ve all been beautiful but they haven’t

been strange they have been so much

in control

and she is like a stone inside a tangerine

that you don’t expect to bite into but

you put in your pocket because you were struck by the moment

and now she is sitting at home and

i am a thousand miles away and even

when i am close to her i am a hundred miles from home

so what’s the point

if she would have me, i would have to have her and hold her

and take her anywhere she wants to go because i am

indecisive and patient with my love and she is full of motion

and she will need to cut me in half to inspect inside

and if she finds corruption and approves of it and smiles

i will know its love because fuck freshly paved concrete

cobblestone is the future

because where else will your cigarette butts go but

between the cracks between the stones

and between the cracks between your teeth.

she doesn’t like poetry

which is good because i don’t either i just

write it because if i didn’t i would probably burn down my house

with vegetable oil like a great and terrible vegan arsonist

best of all she is musical, not that she plays music but

that she feels it she dances and sings and for all

i know she does neither well but she does them and thats

all that matters because you have to feel it inside you

the way you feel a drink on a cold winter night burning you up

and tearing you apart so you can put yourself back together

so i can take the pieces of my heart

and crudely push them together like the wrong puzzle pieces

into something even nearly resembling the picture on the front of the box

so that i am not playing a role but rolling with the punches

and then i might just feel ready

when i will never be ready , but thats

thats the point isn’t it,

that every day will be like the first day

and if its not, then it will be the last