"Shall I project a world?"

wednesday malaise

sprawled out on your couch we watch

lions copulate on public television. incredulously carnal.

we:

unaffected. and

full of the fervor that is our youth

making googly-eyes at each other

and d i s t o r t i n g rEAliTy

for our own perverted purposes.

we say not a word.

i am bound to you by miles of pop-psychology:

fear of intimacy, abandonment issues.

i saw yesterday, on the tele, a special on

clinical depression and i wanted to change the channel

but could not bring myself to reach

for the remote. and last night

i crashed through the surface of

so many bad dreams to awake

covered in my own body's salt and liquid and gasping for air.

and it took me just about three hours to put my foot down on the floor

simply out of fear.

i tell you all this now, because in much the same way,

we are stuck now before the images of masturbating mammals

our limbs prone over each other's erogenous zones

and still

unaffected.