Congestion
Headache
Sore throat
Persistent cough
Hiccups
Insomnia
Sore muscles
Cold
Stress
Anxiety
Loneliness
Darkness
Irritated, itchy eyes
Dry skin
Exhaustion
Poverty
Poetry
And you
Not being here to help me

When we're out on the porch
In the heat of the sun, there's so much
Wonder about you --
I can't derive the tangent lines of the
Curls of your hair, or measure the
Light absorbance of your oaken eyes --
I can't integrate the perfect curve
Of your goddess body, or
Figure the infinite sum of your
Love for me --
I can't equate the fractals that
Make up your palm,
But I can kiss them all the same --

I can take you in like I do
The flowers I plant outside my
Window, more endless math
I don't care to figure --

Because just you with me, is
All I ever need.

The perfect kiss
Lasts four bars in 3/4 time
This piece of music is my life's work -
Two years of composition -
As my tongue blurs the notes on the page
When this piece is finished -
So will my waiting be

Happiness in waterfalls measured
Strangers reunited at last
Time with you is laughing and pleasure
Time with you, it passes too fast
My love is another year older, and loves me
And I love him so that all may hear
Happy Birthday my darling, my only
Until I'm there to sing it in your ear
As you fall asleep right beside me
Never sleeping alone while I'm there
I'll sing Happy Birthday, so lovely
On my finger, your ring will I wear

My chipped nail polish makes shapes of made up continents
Funny silhouettes with lakes and islands
Black and wrinkled from my great whites
I stare at them and pretend it's a new world
Where I'm with you in a lake or on an island
Starting at the shape of Russia  on my thumbnail
Instead of here -
Staring at imaginary islands
Without you

I know you love me
And I was silly
To ever think
You never could

They say there has not been a single day without construction in New York City for over 100 years
Cranes loom above the stumps of skyscrapers like skeletal fingers
And the noise is the anthem of the city
God drops a box of tools he used to build the Earth - and the noise reverberates around the universe until it bounces between the buildings of Manhattan for all eternity
The trickle of traffic lulls children to sleep
No noise is loud enough to drown out another
Framework and scaffolding decorate the sky in lacy corpses
As the white men build their way toward the dollar signs in the stars
Civilians walk the streets in black
Mourning for city that has not yet died and will never sleep
Rushing to a funeral - rushing up ladders
A man runs up the stairs - craving only the elevation and never the satisfaction
Man in neon uniform affirm themselves by yelling at women they will never know - wanting only to dominate the space
Building, always building - toward the nothing the city has not found yet

One day - there will be no more left to build
The skies will no longer be scraped but injected
The sky will not be seen
Useless legacies will tower over the city
In black for the funeral that has finally arrived
The city dies and there is no noise
No noise
No noise
No noise
No noise
The silence is perverse to the inhabitants of New York
A permanent funeral
The people do not know how to mourn
They do not know silence
And the white men - building their worth floor by floor - discovered there were no dollar signs in the stars
There were only stars
And stars meant nothing to them

New York is silent.
And the people begin to scream.