"I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
-William Carlos Williams
1.
Gradually, you and I have grown
1.
Gradually, you and I have grown
to resemble
more and more the
grubby flies
that trespass against us here
whenever the
heat in the alley runs
high,
the way we
keep stubbornly
banging our heads
to occupy
one or another
rented sets of rooms,
always condemned to eaves-
drop on
groaning foreign
language histories of warm wood,
always—only
coming
in
from the outside.
2.
Following several
years of relentless shredding,
take a day
completely off
to try and
pull myself back
together,
but it's
pull myself back
together,
but it's
just so exhausting
attempting to
make the splinters fit.
3.
Goodness, gracious,
Goodness, gracious,
you say
you wish
there was
something you could do
to help me
love you
the way
I used
to love you
way back
then,
which was, you
conclude—forever.
