I Still Don't Understand Women

So the other night I meet a female pal of mine for dinner. As we sift through the appetizers, she tells me how her lovelife's been pretty lame of late, and with each successive glass of booze, she gets a bit more descriptive as to what it is that's got her bummed. Apparently, the last few guys she's dated haven't gone down on her, and she's absolutely "dying" -- her words -- for a bit of tongue-lashing.

This being a long-time pal of mine, and quite a hot little number to boot, I assure her that those guys must be crazy or perhaps even a bit queer to not want to work her over, and that everything will likely change with the next boyfriend.

And she starts to explain how she just needs to be sucked on so badly that she's just looking for someone -- anyone -- who'll go down on her with no strings attached. Just so she can remind herself of what it feels like.

And I tell her again that the next man who comes into her life will probably be the guy for the job. I also add that if all she really wants is a little downtown action, I'm sure any guy in any bar in any part of the country -- provided, y'know, he swung that way -- would be more than up to the task.

And she says, no, she doesn't have the time to filter out the psychos and sissy-boys and Dave Matthews fans. She needs someone she can trust. Someone who'll just do the job like it needs to be done. As she puts it, she literally just wants to lay down, get eaten like there's no goddam tomorrow, and put this cursed drought behind her.

So I, fueled purely by alcohol and a prolonged look at her derriere when she got up to use the ladies room, lamely offer my services, seeing as how she almost seems to be steering the conversation in that direction. Hell, I'm always down to go down, as the Cub Scout Mantra dictates.

And that's when she quickly changes direction. "Oh god, no," she says. "We couldn't do that."

But at least I offered. And perhaps that all she wanted to hear.

If there's one thing I HATE, its a bad kisser.

There are certain things I can overlook in a relationship. Psychotic behavior. Rambling stories about the ex-boyfriend. Threatening me with an empty Heineken bottle. Having to be carried out of your best friend's wedding because you drank 15 Jaeger shots and proceeded to vomit on every inch of carpeting in the reception hall. Rambling stories about how the ex-boyfriend liked your blowjobs. Erratic, almost irresponsible driving. Refusing to tip the paperboy because he "seems Mexican." Throwing all my clothes out into the driveway because I was a half-hour late coming home, even though you knew I was tending to my sick aunt.

But one thing I can't overlook is a bad kisser.

And, man, they're out there.

When things fall apart, they really fall apart.

When things fall apart, they really fall apart. I had been sober since December 26th. Got pretty fucking drunk last night.

Things built up and built up and I couldn't handle it anymore. Completely lost my shit, and wanted to die, just like I did at Christmas.

No excuses. I'm a big boy, and I should be able to take care of myself. But I let myself down, I let my friends down, and I let my kids down.

Mental health problems are a real motherfucker. Things that are normally no big deal can feel massive.

And actual problems seem catastrophic. It's an ugly, lonely, terrible feeling, and it can be so fucking hard to escape it.

I have lots and lots of problems. Some very real. Some in my own fucked up brain. I tried this time. So hard. I tried to fight through.

I did what I thought was right for my children, even though it killed me inside.

I went to the one person I was sure I could count on, but they didn't want to deal with me and my problems. And that killed me a little more.

So I fell. Right back to where I was on Christmas Day. Out of control and wishing I was dead.

Trying to find a way to kill myself and make it look like an accident so my kids would get my insurance.

I decided last night that I was gonna do it at work today. Even had a couple drinks before I headed in to stiffen my resolve.

Couldn't do it, tho. I love my boys too much to do that to them. I love my friends too much to do that to them.

Things seem so fucking bad when I'm like that. Like my life is a bottomless well of despair.

Yeah, things are bad at home. Things are tough for everyone.

Yeah, the girl I love doesn't love me back. Welcome to being an adult, Ben.

It's hard. And last night it was just a perfect storm. Everything coming together in a crescendo of misery. And I fell.

But, I'm still here. I owe my friends an apology. A big one.

Especially Kira. She did her very best to talk me down yesterday, and I failed her. I love her dearly, and I hope she'll forgive me.

And lots of other people. Shimmy and James have stuck by me no matter how fucked up I was, and I love them.

All my friends in the Wankers are the most amazing, supportive, non-judgmental people I've ever met. I'm so lucky to have them. Sorry folks.

And I have to thank Erin, because she reached out to me this morning and made me see some sense in the chaos that was my brain.

So I'm gonna start over. December 18th. I'm gonna try really hard to not let you guys down again. The people that care, I mean.

Because I know there are lots of people that care. Bethany cares fiercely and I don't think I'll ever be able to let her know what she means.

Please try to be kind to each other. There's enough ugliness out there. Pick each other up instead of pushing each other down.

Sorry for interrupting your day, everyone.

EXIT WOUND

you are an exit wound

the extra shot of tequila

the tangled knot of hair that has to be cut out

you are the cell phone ringing in a hushed theatre

pebble wedged in the sole of a boot

the bloody hangnail

you are, just this once

you are flip flops in a thunderstorm

the boy’s lost erection

a pen gone dry

you are my father’s nightmare

my mother’s mirage

you are a manic high
which is to say:
you are a bad idea

you are herpes despite the condom

you are, I know better

you are pieces of cork floating in the wine glass

you are the morning after
whose name I can’t remember
still in my bed

the hole in my rain boots

vibrator with no batteries

you are, shut up and kiss me

you are naked wearing socks

mascara bleeding down laughing cheeks

you are the wrong girl buying me a drink

you are the typo in an otherwise brilliant novel

sweetalk into unprotected sex

the married coworker

my stubbed toe

you are not new or uncommon
not brilliant or beautiful

you are a bad idea

rock star in the back seat of a taxi
burned popcorn
top shelf, at half price

you are everything I want

you are a poem I cannot write

a word I cannot translate

you are an exit wound

a name I cannot bring myself

to say aloud

this is still a love poem.

you say, here is a casual reminder that i adore you

and i say, be not-casual about it, adore me un-casually,
pretend it’s really as big as it feels

sometimes i sound too much like a poet.

if there is going to be a sweaty body panting over top of mine,
i want it to be yours. cup my breast and call me sugar,
think about remembering to buy coffee when you’re inside of me.
this is a love poem.

we forget to put out the garbage on the right nights
and the milk goes sour in the fridge
because i’m trying that vegan thing again
and you’re never home to drink it. i buy it anyway.
this is a love poem.

i know it’s never really as big as it feels.
someone looking in from the outside will always see something
unremarkable. i’m okay with that. watch me
misplace my metaphors.

watch me put down my pen long enough to
slide into bed with you and press my cold feet up against
your warm legs.

If I Were a Dog

I would trot down this road sniffing

on one side and then the other
peeing a little here and there
wherever I felt the urge
having a good time what the hell
saving some because it’s a long road

but since I’m not a dog
I walk straight down the road
trying to get home before dark

if I were a dog and I had a master
who beat me I would run away
and go hungry and sniff around
until I found a master who loved me
I could tell by his smell and I
would lick his face so he knew

or maybe it would be a woman
I would protect her we could go
everywhere together even down this
dark road and I wouldn’t run from side
to side sniffing I would always
be protecting her and I would stop
to pee only once in awhile

sometimes in the afternoon we could
go to the park and she would throw
a stick I would bring it back to her

each time I put the stick at her feet
I would say this is my heart
and she would say I will make it fly
but you must bring it back to me
I would always bring it back to her
and to no other if I were a dog

”There, There”

He’d left her two years ago but she could still at night put

her hand between her legs and he would be there on top of
her saying Come for me and when she couldn’t she’d
remember the little hotel in Mexico with the round white tables
and folded umbrellas and after they married his snakeskin
boots at the end of the bed with black satin sheets but still she
couldn’t come masturbating alone in the dark, so she thought
of standing naked while he held an open safety pin dragging
the tiny sharp silver point delicately over her breasts, pulling
her to the floor where later she ground broken glass into the
cracked red and white linoleum with her heel, and he would
grab her so hard sometimes she felt she’d never been truly
held before and she said Go further, take me further, and
when the final papers came she got drunk as usual and drove
to his old flat he’d moved back into and knelt on his doorstep
saying his name over and over into the mail slot, through it she
could see part of the hallway he’d led her down once and tied
her up and shaved her and she said Now I’m yours and she
was and he was holding her I love you come for me and she
came, and it was raining and down the hall of the rooming
house someone’s travel alarm was going bleep-bleep-bleep
without stopping and there was nothing to drink and no one to
say There, there while she cried.

unholy

i.

You want to paint the scene all
reds and greens and I keep saying
we were golden but the right
color just doesn’t exist.

How do you paint
holy things?

ii.

The first time you kissed me I 
put my hands up and I didn’t
know it then but that was
my first surrender.

I said you taste like God and you
said I don’t want him here and waved
your hand between us like a rickety
gate.

We swung open and
shut.

iii.

I was in Catechism the first
time I thought about touching
another girl.

When I told you your lips turned
up and you smiled then laughed
but it wasn’t mean.

It wasn’t mean yet.

iv.

There are different types 
of prayers but we prayed for 
ourselves and to each other.

Down on my knees always
down on—

v.

When it’s early and the sun is
beginning to sneak up and shine into
my window I imagine you here
with soft light in your hair.

You want to paint me
black and blue and hang me
up in your front hall for
all the guests to see 
and we both know
I’d let you.

We both know, for you, there’s
nothing I wouldn’t do.

vi.

I still make the sign
of the cross when
I hear your name.

How to Touch a Woman

Technically, and with a love of

technicalities mixed with childlike
wonder, and also a little shame
at the long history of the ignorance
of men. Touch her the way
you would touch whatever’s behind
glass and a Do Not Touch sign
if the glass were suddenly removed
and the sign were given you
to fold it into a beautiful paper crane
to give to her. Touch her that way
every time as though it were
the first time. And when you consider
your cells and her cells are dying
and being born all the time, technically, it is.

EVEN THE NAILS IN THE SHEET ROCK MISSED HER

When she entered a room, the room paid attention.
When she entered his house,
the leather couches plumped up and shone,
the hardwood floors were giddy with tapping
against the soles of her small black shoes,
the books on the shelves jostled each other
for a better view of the waves of her hair.
When she didn’t come, the walls held their breath,
straining to hear her voice, her laugh.
When she still didn’t come, that crying noise wasn’t him.
The white gauze curtains hung keening,
as they remembered the stroke of her fingers.
And at night, when he turned and turned,
it was only because the bed prodded him continually,
as the pillows pleaded in his ear, “Bring her back.”
And when he sat up, his hand on his chest,
how could he breathe,
when all the air had gone out into the street
calling her name?

TIGERS

What are we now but voices
who promise each other a life
neither one can deliver
not for lack of wanting
but wanting won’t make it so.
We cling to a vine
at the cliff’s edge.
There are tigers above
and below. Let us love
one another and let go.

The modern biographers worry

“how far it went,” their tender friendship.
They wonder just what it means
when he writes he thinks of her constantly,
his guardian angel, beloved friend.
The modern biographers ask
the rude, irrelevant question
of our age, as if the event
of two bodies meshing together
establishes the degree of love,
forgetting how softly Eros walked
in the nineteenth-century, how a hand
held overlong or a gaze anchored
in someone’s eyes could unseat a heart,
and nuances of address not known
in our egalitarian language
could make the redolent air
tremble and shimmer with the heat
of possibility. Each time I hear
the Intermezzi, sad
and lavish in their tenderness,
I imagine the two of them
sitting in a garden
among late-blooming roses
and dark cascades of leaves,
letting the landscape speak for them,
leaving us nothing to overhear.

A Question You’ve Never Been Asked, But You’d Like to Have Been Asked

Which room do you prefer –

the one
with the sunrise

the one
with the sunset

or the one
with me

It’s Not Worth It

It’s not worth it to me to ask 
whether you love me, 
whether you’re happy, 
whether this arrangement works for you.

But look how much trouble I go to 
immersing myself in answers to questions 
that haven’t even occurred to you. 
And may never occur to you.

duplicity

Me: I’m so ugly!

500 million other people: NONONO YOU’RE ARE SO CUTE AND SWEET YOU’RE ARENT UGLY DONT YOU EVER SAY THAT!!!!

Me: wow I’m really beautiful!

500 other million people: WOW YOU’RE SO SELF CENTERED. CAN YOU KEEP THAT TO YOURSELF???? NO ONE CARES.

“you only started liking it cause everyone else did”

“you only started liking it cause everyone else did”

well yeah

everyone was talking about it

i got curious

i watched it

and i liked it

how is that a bad thing

“mom im bleeding”

“mom i'm bleeding”

“oh sweetie there’s no need to be worried that’s just a sign that you’re becoming a woman”

“thank god, i was really starting to get worried about this axe in my shoulder”