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afternoons like this
we live in afternoons like these
where we walk with folded arms and mercury
where we sit inside but next to the window
empty and aching and not knowing why
there are hollow tubes inside me
draining out color
loosening up strings that i’m sure have held
the guilt of many won fights
and enslaved words not bitten off
becoming prisoners of memory
and calluses on knuckles
and pieces of ourselves
and holes in plaster
that surround nerves and loves and homes
there are afternoons like these
when you learn you are not in love
and when you learn you are
when discovery is a tool for the absurd
rather than the logical system in which we live
what we discover lies not outside that window
but rather in the faces of the strangers
who sit across from us
drinking their lattes or maybe gins and tonic
lies in the sadness of their fortunes lost
and in the climaxes they may have
or may have never achieved
we are dyed hair
we are boob adjustments right before we catch his eye
we are what our friends like
and often what they wear
we are mostly dead
but sometimes so alive
on afternoons like this
