on the fourth of her wine glasses
I wrote in permanent marker “say
sorry! you must even if you don’t know why” only
to find that permanent ink is
easily re
moveable when
scribbled on secondhand glassware.
I lay on a bare mattress in
empty room
vacant house
everyone is interning for the summer
sleeping in their old beds
sleeping with old girlfriends
or the old girlfriends
of old
friends.
I am paying utilities for the first time in
my life
the whole thing makes me think
the way I thought I’d feel after a
graduation
or triumphant
promenade or
maybe even a success in criminal
activity (but I never felt this after any photographable event)
costly, I curl and ball into
invisible sheets drawing
invisible curtains so as not to
glimpse the cleared
out room where she used
to sleep
(the room where she never read
any of the obvious signals)
(or
emails
I invisibly sent her) with the
backside of my eyes
and the frontside of my
inexcusable silences.
oh! the hobbies we hope
to tragically acquire from the dealers
of substances we are too
old to pretend
we don’t use.
the fourth of her wine glasses was only a fifth of my
problems, which maybe points to the
idiocy of permanence on glass. yet the promise of
seventh chances remains
intact.
