No. It wasn't a very good reading because while I acted like I was reading about her I was really reading about you. Though I now claim your love to be plastic, store-bought, unreal, fake, it still disturbs me deeply that you were able to just take it away from me while I physically shook and convulsed in your arms with tears streaming down my face. Though I claim it publicly to be bad and unreal I'd give my very last breath and my very last day to feel your breasts rest against my chest once more and feel your kiss and your breath on my neck and your eyelashes flutter on my cheek. I'll never forget you driving away and I'll never forget the feeling I felt as I watched your tail lights disappear. I had never felt more alone and here I am, still alone, staring at this old computer screen, drinking a cheap beer, listening to a crappy punk record. These were the things I claimed to love. These were all I needed. I'd trade them all in for just one more night an one more time, all to feel your love that no longer burns for me.

The Heart of a Wolverine

I know you don't believe me.
You say these things can't be true.
I couldn't have changed so much-
in a year, or could I have?

I drown my throat with beer after beer.
My teeth are brown and I'm spitting up bile in the morning.
I spoke with you and tried to bring you home-
just ONE last time.

I cursed you in your face and I kicked your kneecap-
then I fled the bar and dash-dashed with all my might
to catch the brown line train to Kedzie-
where I got off the train feeling like a suicide case.

Times have changed and are changing still.
While my heart at times still screams for yesterday my mind
is now finally taking control. I used to feel incapable
of loving, but I now know my heart is bursting with love.
That love wants out, but am I afraid of being smashed,
destroyed, taken advantage of, or lead on? Only time
will tell. We both now have seen the tears fall from my eyes that
once burned with nothing more than rage and hatred.
I am human. I feel human emotions. I am a sensitive and
emotional man.

But- Try to call me bluff. Call me a liar and try backing me into a corner.
I will write things that only I know about you and I will proudly wear
these stories and writings and musings on my face, exposing you for what you really are.
Try to make me out to be a fool and this little Midwestern bastard will
write with eyes ablaze and finger tips of disgust and I will tear you apart-
leaving you battered, bloodied and bruised with the heart of a wolverine.

Chicago.

"When you live in the heart of it, the city easily loses its romantic edge." Tamara said while bunching up her face at me. Tamara was a short thin Midwestern girl who’d been traveling all over the country for three years before settling down and making Chicago her home. She was a pretty punky looking girl with a Subhumans tattoo on her left shoulder. She sat beside me on Craig’s stinky couch with so many cigarette burns on it that it resembled a package of swiss cheese. Tamara was playing around with an orange and struggling to peel back the skin of the plump and juicy citrus fruit.
"Here! Give me the fucking thing! You’re driving me up the wall!" I said before yanking the orange out of her hand and peeling the orange quickly, violently even, before tossing it back to her.
"Thanks, crabby."
"Crabby? Whatever. Now what’s this you say about the city losing its romantic edge?"
"Yeah. It does lose its romantic edge," she said "I mean once you’ve lived in the heart of it for so long there are just no more surprises left and you become jaded."
This was a problem many of my friends were experiencing. We had all moved to the city to find something we had lacked in our collective hometowns. We all thought moving here would automatically fix our problems. We were going to leave everything behind and start anew and everything would be great.
Unfortunately though, that’s just not how things happen. Many of us ended up broke, disgruntled, jaded, brokenhearted, beaten down, and ultimately very unhappy. We had forgotten that a city can’t cure a disease, only we could cure our diseases and we had to just make the best of everything.
"What? That’s because you’re just not trying. Get up off this goddamn couch and lets go out and make something happen! Hey! I have an idea..." I hollered. My eyes were growing more maniacal and intense by the millisecond and my heart was bursting with excitement.
"Uh oh. You have that look in your eyes. I don’t like that look. All your ideas end up blowing up in our faces, Matt. Sometimes even literally. Remember the time you showed us all how to make a Works bomb and you nearly blinded yourself and three others?"
"Yeah, but this is different!" I screamed in Tamara’s direction.
"You always say that... and it never is..."
"Tamara, listen to me for fuck’s sake! What day is it today? Tuesday? Thursday? Oh fuck it, who cares!" I barked out while spinning in circles and pumping my fists in the air. "Here. Come with me..." I said while grabbing Tamara’s skinny wrist in my hand.
I took her out onto the front porch and a bus whizzed by. A man was standing on the corner with a cart selling assorted fruits and vegetables. The train was crawling up in the distance. The spring air was wildly blowing Tamara’s dark hair all about. This was a beautiful moment. This was romance. This was what it was all about. This was the beauty we first saw when moving to this city so many months and years ago. This was what made this place unique. I pointed this out to Tamara but she wouldn’t budge. She was clearly bored.
"Matt, it’s a bus. A fucking bus! There’s nothing romantic or even intriguing about busses. If you’re able to find romance on a city bus littered with old men who stink like piss you’ve clearly lost your mind."
"Okay. Good point. If you’re so bored then why don’t we go out and do something?"
"Okay, but I’ve run out of ideas and I’m broke. What do you have in mind? I hope not just walking down to the Whirlaway to get wasted..."
"No! We’ll go get a bundle of grapes and sit in the sun and make fun of everybody at Navy Pier. We’ll get drunk and ride go-carts. We’ll have a triple X excursion in the grass behind the museum. We’ll have a picnic. We’ll make out in the dumpster behind the liquor store. I’ll ride my bike to the library and you can ride on my handlebars. We’ll go to the carnival. We’ll buy a big watermelon and spit the seeds at each other. We’ll race on foot to the park and play on the swings. We’ll grill out in my back yard and invite all our friends. We’ll drink 40's at the beach. We’ll play board games we don’t know how to play. We’ll make a new zine. We’ll do ‘shrooms and stare at the ceiling fan. We’ll sit on the front porch and count all the red cars that ride by. We’ll go in to your roommate’s bedroom and fuck like little rabbits. We’ll listen to This Bike Is a Pipebomb as loud as the volume will allow and dance one-legged. Come on! We can start right now!" I yelled loudly, excitedly.
"Oh, Matt. That all sounds so great, but are you crazy? That masturbation episode of Seinfeld is on in forty-five minutes."

For Astro, the cat

How many writings have you suffered under?
For how many years now have you been
neglected, because of the writing?
You have gone unfed, unloved, untouched
because of the writing.
The words spill from my fingertips
to the page, and you dash dauntingly in
between my legs.
How many homes have you lived in with me now?
5, 6, 7, 8? That is far too much for such a short time.
I move often, never staying in one place for too long
and I have suffered, but you have suffered much more,
and for what? Why? Because I have been selfish.
Your independence amazes me. My dependencies are
delusional. My dependencies are sickening.

Self-strangulation and the brisk eastern winds.

You, with your charcoal eyes and lover’s lips
grin back at me over your chocolate milkshake
and cigarette, me with my first cup of coffee
and my boozy eyes make jokes and you laugh,
beaming all perfectly white teeth.
It won’t be long I know and this time I do not care to leave.
You, across the table make me feel important and
worthwhile, much like the way she used to make me feel
before the world bared its vampiric teeth to us.
We laugh and smile and say "Check please..."
And the sun screams on and the moon shines bright
and there’s a million things I want to tell you
before I fly out 900 miles away but I choke it all
down with a salty grin and soon I will mutter through
choked back verse one last strangled goodbye.