POST-PISSED

Over the hump over the breast the bed the blankets and the rest of the room seemed pulled together way too tightly around her scar shit on the bathroom sink counter fell in a noisy dance on the tile floor as well as the shit in the bathroom and the shit in the bedroom seemed pulled together way too tightly around her scar events details of events fell in a noisy dance if at all if they made any noise at all then or now or whenever they never occurred pretended to occur without him without her she tilted the  screen of her laptop down to forget about the desert sun's lack of manners and tilted it back to look over at her dog chewing out the face of a stuffed elephant trunk hanging by a thread we've all been there heard someone say that and I knew better than to repeat things like that spoken to me during a fire drill still have trouble hearing so many phrases that are undeserving of being heard ever again not good for the skull not good for the skull.

Oh his aching mind not that it mattered happened to stand next to the kitchen mirror he was in the middle of moving that mirror and happened to leave it there never finished much of anything and then it would all end up in corners of himself pulled muscles sore ribs gums bleeding nose running from the law that was ever so impatient with people like me like himself who got worried under the helicopters watching over their excuses and memes that got somewhat better with time like an extracted colon punctuating what they saw clouded with smirks and just when you thought it couldn't get any more familiar it had offer him another diet that extend the waste after shrinking it a bit a tiny bit. Oh his aching mind not that it mattered happened to stand next to the kitchen mirror he was in the middle of moving that mirror and happened to leave it there never finished much of anything and then it would all end up in corners of himself pulled muscles sore ribs gums bleeding nose running between the disappearing spaces of alibis disbelief suspending accumulations into paragraphs of inadequate nonsense.

"What did you do?"
"It probably won't work."
"Tell me."
"I don't want to disappoint you anymore than I already have or maybe I do especially after you drank the other half of the black cherry meant for me. You thought I forgot."
"You're making it up and trying to change the subject and make me forget about what I asked you."
"What did you ask me?  Don't answer that. Never mind. I don't care."
"Yes, you do enough to want to get back at me for a soda even though you're making it up."
"I'm not. They skipped our room. It might have actually worked."
"What might have?"
"Nothing. Tell me what you were going to tell me."
"I wasn't going to tell you anything."
"Yes, you were."
"No, I wasn't."
"Admit it."
"I have nothing to admit because there wasn't anything I was going to tell you and now I've lost what little interest I had in ever telling you anything ever again."
"You started to say something about the animals."
"Here we go again. I thought I told you I gave up on children's stories a long time ago."
"I know. I know you did. I mean before we were interrupted by them going up and down the halls you were saying something about the animals and there not being any left."
"That's not what I said. I was observing how I haven't heard any lately."
"What? You haven't heard any pigs lately?"
"Easy. Lower your voice. They could come back."
"I didn't call them that. Not now. I've thought it referred to them as that many times before we were interrupted by the swine."
"Birds I was talking about not hearing any birds. We had a tree outside our house and I used to hate the racket they made outside my bedroom window. Now I hear nothing. Nothing but planes."
"Candice told me that last week. Then she got suspended is what I heard."
"She's not coming back."
"What happened?"
"She shot herself."
"Oh crap. That's horrible."
"With her boyfriend's gun."
"That doesn't sound right."
"You would say that."
"Yes, I would say that."
"By the way what Candice told you Melanie told her. Everyone has a story with a tree full of noisy birds outside their window once upon a time and now they can't stand the nothing the nothing but planes inside their heads pounding with nothing that belongs to them just borrowing expressions."
"I would say that it doesn't sound right."
"You changed the number on the door."
"How did you know?"
"Cause I changed it back. I know you're the type that could never go sleep because they never wanted the weekend to end and I'm the type who just wanted to get it over with."

Jury still out
For the remainder 
of the torment
Nix the ideas
milieu after mileu
grungy sporadic knuckle cracking
terms of gory figures
subtracted from one another
divided and reunited
in graves of disfavor
blame sticking to the stains
in the seat of your pants
skirts dragging you down
into compliant energy
coffee has colored your sleep
your dreams where you
have to hold your urine
your shit together
until it paints your world
with another coat 
to warm your decay


- Max Stoltenberg