INA

"oh how I hate short, stubby girls" she'd say
a thick russian accent
travelling in the smoke of her du mauriers
crashing into the red wall
where dozens and dozens of tolstoy and other
favorites sat
eccentric and ageless
like her
and that german face I loved to watch
as she sat in her leopard coat complaining about fat people
her tall body bent over the stroller
and her eyes round
her eyes round

"you must smoke. I highly encourage that you smoke. I encourage all the addictions"
and we'd twist open the wine and talk about whatever she wanted
and I wished I'd be like her at her age
and I haven't called again

always

listening to a cd obsessively
will always take you back to that time
the bodyguard: 1994
dee-lite: 1995
alanis: 1996
marilyn manson: 1998
dinah washignton: 2001
and you will own those songs
as if your life had a sound track of its own
and you cannot replay the tunes
without feeling depressed
and wondering why the past always
makes you depressed
always
so on the bright side
maybe you're not going through difficult times
you just always hated life.

spider solitaire

you can stop living
buried under
the numbing gleam
of sex and the city videos
and spider solitaire on the computer
and that empty email account
you keep on checking
a depression forming
on the green pull-out couch
where you've left your body
to just consume itself
and the mind to stagnate

no more questions nor
sorrows
just that premature sign of
defeat
wallowing in embarrasment
swallowing the crevice of your life
that no one sees and nothing enters
like that fungus creeping through
between the washroom tiles
its innocuous germs an
invisible catastrophe

that is what it's like
the want to want again
to have purpose
even in the unconquered land
and to not dread the rise
of each morning that reminds
you of how dead your life has become
and that it's all your fault.