The Absence of things.

tonight
I reached out and grabbed a knee for
what
reason i cant say or care about
and i came up
with a fistful of
your heartbeats

it caught me right in the sweet
spot
my throat
swollen with all the shit and stewing

i should learn to say in a subtle way
so as not to provoke
or exacerbate perhaps like
everything else i scratch your surface
just all wrong
and just too much

with a heavy hand

always

and now as your pulse clicks question marks into unfinished sentences and
fragments
of my arguments and constant
static
like mental stolen cable channels
snow
fills my chest and i swell from some subterranean place just beyond
where i can reach
with claws and broken fingernails
always
dirty

and the left unsaid things start to
thaw
me and awaken me to some familiar awareness
i forgot to feel in recent days it seems
to the presence
the existence and persistance
of my own pulse
still keeping track of all the things i know better than to keep tabs on
for the sake of self preservation perhaps
or maybe just selfish short-sightedness and
vertigo
is what i can blame today i guess
it matters less with each second hand twitch of my life
that goes by unnoticed and unaccounted for by choice
to everything and everyone who might count for something
except this thing the size of my fist
i was always led to believe
but who really knows how big or small
and for all i know the pulse i take for granted all too often
and in too many nights like these

might not be built to last afterall
and all there is to count on
is the countless ways to keep on
your sleeve the worst of yourself
like a
badge

a sticky band-aid
and a sickly looking wound
of my own making and who am i to say

it is not normal
or natural at all
to find your life

behind your kneecap
while you sleep
at ease and

all told, it sold me on the idea of
question marks

and i will try to sleep it off tonight
like i should not have to pretend
and you
leave me wide open
exposed
and choking
on my bloated and swollen
lips
tingling from what
never did escape them today

but probably should have
saved me
from

this.

moment of truth
in its brutal
i know too well, and throw the well-rehearsed
other cheek
before it even clears the
event horizon
of my scrambled egg thing of mind.

and i don't mind if you don't mind
that things are beating and
pumping
thrusting
working hard
to keep on
not living
like we do more than we don't.

right on my sleeve
and here in my hand
your proof of you
in kneecaps
and ellipses unfinished business
do nothing good for us and i
pull back

my hand

and my heart.