the taste of physicality, since the body
cannot lie: iron, chlorine, calcium, steel.
your mouth is a field where i
hesitate to invade but
am always sore to evacuate.
your body heat has a permanence, a way
of attaching itself to my hands and my lips,
till detachment is a bruising inferno.
when my muscles shake with exhaustion,
when my blood boils with frustration,
when my mind aches with dissatisfaction,
i will call you home
until the rust and the erosion drive me away.

stage one.
it's nothing i could have done, it's both or neither
or either but never just me.
i'm fine, it's nothing, i went to work today
and then out with the girls and then
back home and obviously i'm fine and it's nothing.

stage two.
what a joke, what a punchline, it's everything
to do with him and his issues
and what he did or didn't give me, i mean at best
it was circumstance, we couldn't
have fought those odds and won.

stage three.
maybe
if i lose weight
he will love me again.

stage four.
i just think i've seen what there is, you know?
i think i've dated every type,
fucked every fuckable person at least once,
loved every unlovable idiot at least once
except myself.

stage five.
i got some cats, so i'm fine.
obviously i'm fine, it was a good joke, i laughed.
losing weight is healthy.
at least i can stop having bad sex.
i miss good sex.

take the time
to know yourself--or,
when that is too challenging,
to know your body.
take the time to touch the whole
length that is your height,
the breadth of your rib cage,
the veins in the backs of your hands.
some skin rougher
than you remember from the last time
you engaged  in any self exploration.
scars that have disappeared,
some you've forgotten about
(fourth grade playground,
junior year fistfight over a girl).
find the bits that are
softer than you expected.
take the time to find perfection:
in your own skin, you are.

easy question:
why didn't it work out?

pause.

why when the challenges cropped up
as we knew that they would were we unable
to voice to each other the deep
injustice of inarticulateness?

pause.

hard question:
after the man at the baseball stadium parking lot
winked at us and said "don't let that one go"
why did we, and which one of us did?