Untitled -5

The day I met you, I crushed my lungs into flour and sprinkled them, in handfuls, against the jabbing waves of Lake Michigan at Belmont Harbor. I was in no shape to be meeting you. So, imagine, I fucked up.

"So, what's wrong with you?" Asks my friend.

Me? I grimaced, "Fuck. Dunno. Is there? Something wrong with me?"

"Dunno." Says my friend.

"Why don't you tell me? Don't you know?" We are zipping by buses and bikers and cranky Cabbies along Broadway. I wish we were on Lake Shore Drive. The shimmer in the lake helps conjur peace, if not clarity.

"Did she hurt you so badly that you keep on at the ones you won't have?" Asks my friend.

She haunts me. She didn't hurt me. But, for once, this isn't about her.

My brain bobbled my friend's words like a half committed jester. Since, I have fumbled a few more relationships. Punted one. A safety would have been considerable horseshoes. To no avail, not even a fucking safety. But, that's fuckin' tomboy sports symbolism. Fug gin' boring. In real human English, I got nothing.

And then, "How's the love life, Bionic?"

The question, innocent enough. Some say when we don't know what to say, don't say anything. In some parts, they might say, don't say nothing. I kinda adore double negatives. I want to cuddle up with them, and sing them into a fuzzy sleep.

It is inevitable. I think about the day I met you. And how, now, I'm always at a loss for words only around you. How my eyes blab everything to you, even behind tight shades pulled over my face. Oh, you can't see. Do you? Do you? Do you?

And today, you ask, "How are you?" after some minor chit-chat. I'm cursing the empty space where my lungs used to be. The space, now filled with alarms going off, alarms vibrating through my blood and setting off little earthquakes in my knee caps. And my eyes are watering. Probably the pollen. And the chambers of my heart seem to be clubbing each other, fist to jaw. Must be the heat. You say, "Hey. How. are you?"

Today, I can't, like, lie. I squint. "I gotta go." My feet shuffle me away.

The day you asked, could I love you, all I could do was talk about Nimbus clouds and fairy dust. The truth is, I was a lungless bastard lapping at my wounds.

Fourth and inches. Hike. Loss of 11.

Today, I wish for a vice. I wished that I liked to drink tequila when I'm dry. I wished I could fall from the wagon in some fantastical binge. But all I have are the stage curtains, cut away the peripheral. Draw them down, just narrow enough to see the things in front of me directly.

"How's the love life, Bionic?"

I'll crack my shell against the frying pan, drizzle until the yolk drops heavy against a torturous heat. That's me.