Look It's Fine

You are on a beach and you are swimming 
Alone to frolic with the fishes 
Adamantly irritating child 
You have dropped your warm demeanour
Friday over truffle pizza
Doffed off your autonomy without a sound
A contender for the simper 
Of one slavish solipsistic system 
There is a vacuum cleaner in the middle of the floor 
When your mother said to do the dishes 
And there I stood, appropriated in my lilac dress 
The housewife I was always meant to be— 

Lounging in the living room 
Abandoned in a leather couch
The prelude stops and then attenuates 
Throughout the drive back from the airport
Palm trees weeping, discourse is a well away 
A little golden bell just like an earring falling
You left me to drive away 

And so we navigated highways 
Made our way towards a faithful
Birthday present you had promised me 
Sentimental kisses swaddled in a scene
Promenade throughout the imitation riviera
And then you led me to believe—
You promised you would visit me. 

Oceanic stereo is seething 
Sunny Isles wrapped about beach
Mellowed casual careening 
Not unlike that vulgar evening— 

We are in New York 
Washington Square 
Madison and Union Square
There are all the roses 

Smoking drunken soggy joints
Yellow smog like in the poem 
When you always used to listen— 
Before you learned to have me bleeding
Caught up in your binding string 
With men it’s always talk of freedom 
Four more years and college days 
But just to be a woman—sniffing all the tulips 

When I stand up it’s always twisted 
Crazy fucking clingy girl 
She once dared to have a bloated heart 
Diced in red tomatoed pieces
Like those artificial sweeteners 
You had had a chance to meet them 
Love is crippled in a seizure
Melted phantom swollen pieces
I’ve never had this poignant experience 
The man I felt up in the middle of the park
Fondled through my blue-green dress 
Coddled on a public bench
On an overt motorbike the bearded man is singing 
“You are in love—but get a room!” 

We kissed through whiplash in your old apartment
Flashback to my airport wishes
Grand forgotten memories 
You would never wish away
Swimming in the lucid water 
Pillowed breasts—your kneecap—chest 
You have not yet turned eighteen
Revisiting lost dignity
Breathing wheezing nicotine
I am over twenty-three
You are acting quite obscene 

Break my heart in the casino.

Well you can dream of being filthy rich—
Or a meagre suicidal failure 
Sometimes I would wager—
All the jokes you used to say 
Jumping from the balcony 
If this selfsame reality did not bend your way—
Sometimes I would wager you were speaking truths 
When you stood beneath the fountain deep in the casino 
Burning up your kindness as you gambled it away 
But gradually…

For I never did perceive the difference 
Between a genuine apology
And these manufactured platitudes
Soaking bathtub whiskey suds
Showerhead against my chest 
Microphoning muffled notes
When we wished away commitment 
Buying clothes without your mother 
Generously gruesome and grotesque. 
You have never mentioned how I begged you for the sex 
Perhaps that makes me a seductress,
Uncouth Russian empress 
Wishing you to have the best. 

“Listen here I fucking love you,
Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing.”

Evanescent New York fragments
Brought you back to your Miami

Oh, but I was just in a good mood that day 
Really, when I asked you later, lying in your bed 
But did you really mean it? 
But did you really mean it. 
But did you really mean it!

We are sitting over mushroom pizza 
And your leather wallet paints a silent scene 
Oh, I am aware, that there are always other people 
But did you need to break my heart at the casino 
Liqueured ice cream and a piece of olive oil bread
So does your temper fluctuate entirely 
With all the earnings that you stash beneath your belt 
Well I once thought that I could teach you—
As one wise man used to say—
Not to be a whore for money
But what other whores exist by definition 
The other whore is just another me 
But do you remember how you cared for me 

New York winters
Soft Miami streets
“This is how it’s meant to be.”

Do you remember when I fought to see you 
How the planes were nearly silenced
All our transit wiped away 
Largely differential 
Nullified, quiescent 
Love affair 
Miami Beach
Another weekend 

“But I didn’t want to do it.”
But do you remember how we stood in the casino 
Bat your stupid beautiful eyelashes towards me
Digesting morning news 
Like that song you used to listen to 
Nirvana, Polly, and the Beatles
Taking in a breakfast fluke
Horror or disquietude 

Welcome to the real machine 
Your docile marble crippled housewife 
I remember cleaning up the laundry 
Washing all the dishes 
Just so I could stand here screaming 
As you leave another evening
Fucking all your sophomoric friends 
Thinking one day I shall leave you 
Just as you had left behind my reading

And so we went around the marble arches 
Just as when I took the trip to show you 
What could have been this you and me 
Reflection of a hazy dream 
Don’t you dare request another thing from me