• This is something that I strongly suggest avoiding to all those who read this poem. Especially if you have to do safer sex presentations with your ex. It cost me just a bit of my sanity...and my dignity. And in the end, we don't really speak to each other at all.

Ex-boyfriend worked w/ me last summer

it's almost like reviving a monster

when you speak to me:

"are we dead still...?

is the pulse back...?

is it beating...?

are we breathing...?"

barely friends.

hardly functional.

some

half-dead lame encrusted shuffling
 
	awkward stitched-together

thing

that

speaks in      w h i s p e r s

in a foreign tongue

that might never be completely understood

again.




jagged nails & blood shot eyes

shit for brains.     souls worn thru.

momentarily




i just like to check on that

blue strangulated baby.

can it cry out?

will we hear it?

do we fuckin' even give a shit?!

momentarily




i just like to check on that

snaggle-toothed marionette.

does it sleep at night? or 

dream the good dreams?

rest its flailing limbs from weary strings?




eat your heart out. bread & butter.

knife & fork.

full dinner platter.	suck that up.

swallow that down. 		        ain't it cold, baby?

ain't it though?




misplaced anger. 		       displaced blame.

well-placed blows to proverbial face & frame.

tilt your head just a little sideways...

don't look better. does it yet?




stock the cupboards full of stoli,

full of home-grown kind-bud in plastic baggies.

smoke & liquor.
	
ingest/

imbibe/

inhale...

3x 	  daily. two weeks at a pace.

like to neglect.	        dig being addicted.

just these few months. just to cheer up.

just to make a crooked smile more

g  e  n  u  i  n  e . . . 




it just like reviving a monster

by the time you're near to leaving:

"is it speaking...?

what does it say today &

did it say those things on purpose...?"

hardly "friends."

barely functional.




say a rosary. a chant a prayer or two, cross yourself or whatever it is you do &

get it over with.

hastily.

perfunctory.




please...just take this corpse away from me.

go back to michigan.

• Chy Ryan Spain

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