We’d been waiting in line at Chipotle for half an hour
when you turned to me and said
“If we have to stand here for five more ******* minutes I’m throwing myself in the deep frier.”
I told you that I figured a person could stand just about anything
for ten seconds
Then when that’s over,
you just start on another ten seconds
Our burrito bowls would be here right away
if we just took it ten seconds at a time
So the first night I slept in your bed,
as you kicked me in the side as punishment
for a night’s worth of nightmares dreamt too close for comfort
Each prime number punctuated by another jab I counted
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
One month later at Tim Horton’s I ordered you breakfast.
A sesame seed bagel lightly toasted with butter.
It’s two shades too dark
and when I came home you told me
as far as you were concerned we both belong in the garbage,
slammed the door in my face so I counted
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
Ten weeks before, woke up to knife elbows
slicing into my ribs saying I can’t sleep
So you played architect and I was Pompeii
Finally touching me for the first time in centuries
The dust rising to reveal relief as tangible as ruins themselves
I leaned in to brush my lips against yours,
hands rushed up my cheek and you pushed me,
Just a little too roughly into a forest of flannel sheets and recycled oxygen
I felt thankful that at least you were touching me
In a way that if I tried hard enough I could perceive as romantic
You rolled away like ocean’s waves pushing against the dams of my eyelids
One audible leak and I’d be sleeping in the bathtub again so I counted
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
Eight days later at my parents’
Edith Piaf was on my turntable
Your borrowed vape in my hand
I should’ve probably been crying,
But my mind has only ever had one track and missing you took precedence over tears.
Wanting to go back to you feels gross.
It feels wet
It feels nauseating
Why do I want to go back to a place
That was once a home but is now just an apartment
where I pay rent in my ability to sidestep the landmines scattered across floor made of eggshells?
I love you because when you saw me have a panic attack for the first time
You held me until my muscles felt like they hated me a little less
I don’t because when I walked in on you ******* your ex girlfriend
Your thunder shook my tree branch shoulders
So hard that my boughs convulsed and burst the twig capillaries in my eyeballs.
I love you because your stepmother is younger than you are
And that’s just really ******* sad.
I don’t because you say you never did anything that would warrant “this kind of behaviour”
As if loving you had landed me in detention
I love you because you once felt like home.
I don’t because you changed the locks.
1, 2, 3,
For months I told myself that we all crack under pressure
But once I saw that my tremors were coming from your faults
I realized how deep trembles are felt
Love is not an earthquake
Love is not painful
Love is learning how to come home again
Love is ******* magic
I will not delay its happening by wasting another ten seconds on you.

Please accept the attached the original, as yet not published work written by G. David Schwartz - the former president of Seedhouse, the online interfaith committee. Schwartz is the author of A Jewish
Appraisal of Dialogue and Midrash and Working Out Of The Book
Currently a volunteer at the Cincinnati J Meals on Wheels, Schwartz continues to write.
His latest book is Shards And Verse  (2011, Publish America).
             Names are not real people

                        G David Schwartz
         [email protected]
Four For Glory
The Night Was Cut Off From Smiling
        G David Schwartz
Oh, I will not die
The night was cut off from smiling  
I sat there crying

Broken Wings Fly Upside Down
         G David Schwartz
Whether red or brown  
broken wings fly upside down
Do not touch the clown

I Hear The Firer Frying
G David Schwartz
I hear the frier frying
I hear the burgers burning
I also here the wind
Early out this morning           

I Am Not Ashamed
        G David Schwartz   
I am not ashamed
I will do anything with you that you wish
except of course
eat some uncooked fish

Was soll denn das nun, klagt unsere Welt,
mir wird so warm und immer wärmer,
ich schwitze schon und krieg gleich Fieber.
Ist das ein Virus, der mich befällt?

Das sind die Menschen, ach du Schande.
Sind die denn noch ganz gescheit?
Greifen ihren eigenen Wirt an,
wohl zum Denken nicht recht im Stande.

Die Menschheit ist schon eine Plage,
sie hat sich viel zu schnell vermehrt.
Ihr wird es an den Kragen gehen,
dauert ja nur noch ein paar Tage...

Ich frier mich ein und befreie mich
von dem ganzen Schmutz und Schund
und fange dann von vorne an,
auf Menschen doch verzichte ich.

The fickle luck of my sweet cunning stunt  
as my tutor says " you're a shining wit    
the prime frier tuck of all cunning runts  
a stabbit Rew, the cooking flue, of linguists..."  
  
I picked Lucy my furry ***** cat  
she who once had the name of Mary Hinge  
her dam was Betty Swallocks she said duck fat  
would get me cobbing throcked and Grapes by the rinch
  
But that weren't so muk'n fuch till sigging fruck  
gross Pat Fenis was a right witch banker  
full of featy sweet and featy swannies  
from Penistone not Scunthorpe, a bush whacker?