The plump moon lights up my room.

My mind is now a flat graph
no desire no lust no dream

the cold winds from the rumbling sea
make no dent on me
I look at my palms
and see the cracked floor
gnarled roots of mangrove on the wall
blend seamlessly with all I have
like once I had her in this room
love together
taking wingless flight to the moon
but now I more like sitting here
prospecting no words to rhyme
not angered at the blankness
for in this vacuous moonlight
I wait without a hope of gain
without a despair of loss
unconstrained for time
contoured by fireflies
alone
recounting a new beginning
from the end.

I remember my moms cups of coffee as a child.
A hazelnut aroma rising out of her travel mug --
a gift she got as an underpaid teacher who had to get her boost on-the-go
--filling the car like steam from a hot shower fills a bathroom.
I remember that smell ironically always headed to school.

I remember the first time I was offered a sip of coffee.
Not nearly as sweet as it smelled.
Bitter liquid that terminated taste buds like water extinguishes flame as it billowed across the tongue and  down the hatch.
I remember that taste vowing never to have to again.

I remember when my sister started working at a "coffee shop".
The one that competes with itself across street-ways,
and still has lines filled with downward looking drones despite being in Paris.
I wouldn't even eat the pastries she brought home
knowing the aroma entwined around them long enough for osmosis.

And sitting now, in the office of my retail store at 23,
Staring into my travel mug,
which looks like an above ground pool version of the black lagoon,
These are the memories that come to mind
as caffeine blocks adenosine from their receptors in my brain.

In such need of a distraction
To save me from this attraction
Alter me, misshape me, reintegrate me
Reform or deform me
Any form of chemical reaction
Contraction, extraction or detraction
To allow me escape this endless inaction
And there goes rhymin' simon
From 1973 and before i was born
Somewhere after the crown of thorns
But again before the golden age of ****
So accuse me again that i would overthink
Easy to say, when you've never read Batfink
Now there's a guy too ****** up to live
So much so, left the scene to resurrect as fixative
**** him, let him tell his story and i'll tell mine
And most of time i do that pretty fine
But this ain't poetry just a personal diatribe
My own little sick bucket, a self centered whine
For the purists this rhyming is surely a crime
But hey look at the title, see i'm just killing time
Anything to stop this endless push and pull
The gnawing of the brain, the heart shaped lull
There's nothing so intense as purest attraction
Yet in your absence i flounder to each & every
Distraction

He wanted to get up and run to her,
Now.
Emotional gravity.
There was no thought, only feeling.
No bags to be packed,
No flights to arrange,
Just an instinct to flee.
Regardless of location,
Without her — he was a stranger.
Run.
Don't look back,
She'll be waiting.