I'm lonelywhich I think is quite ironic since

an adverbs modifies or qualifies

drop the -ly and my state goes from interim to permanence

I'm not lonely now without you

I'm justA lone.

I'm alone.

As I sit here on my empty bed I wonder

Are you happy?

You know nothing of me

Nothing of my spiteful spitfire soul

Filled with the cacophony of a million fireworks

My eyes fix on the screen

Eyes glazed over with tears recycled so many times

it’s amazing they have not carved rivulets down my pale cheeks

And while I stare into your eyes

You mock me

Pale, lifeless on a screen, you live in some other time and place

What I see is not you now nor is it the you I want to see

You are a ghost image

Are you happy?

I imagine as I stare into your ghost eyes you are staring into hers

Lively, enlightened with a spark of lust

And while I remain fixated in the past

You move on

Without me

With her

My spiteful spitfire soul regurgitates remembrance as if it can disgorge the pain of unrequited love

But still I see you

And as you don’t see me

My spitefire soul is left in the past with a bottle of fireball whiskey

Forever stoking the fireworks that you were there to light

And that you left burning

        I wonder how long it will take for me to burn the fire out

So my eyes for you may be but ghost eyes also

        I hope, at least, that you are happy

        Are you happy?

Nothing was ever supposed to be out of the ordinary in their small house.

When they moved into the neighborhood, everything had the HGTV style appeal; gardens were dotted along the well kept lawns of our inclusive community, and every weekend that summer, the street came abuzz with friendly banter and the aromatic smell of barbecue.

I have lived in this neighborhood for a while. I smirk at their arrival. I pity their ignorance, yet I am filled with relief.

The story goes that the family received the house as part of an inheritance, perhaps from an estranged aunt or uncle. They were just heading out from the city, and the belongings they brought that had once filled their tiny apartment were now scarcely enough to fit their new home. Hence, when us neighbors decided to through them an 'impromptu' welcoming party, they were thrilled at the gifts we presented them with.

Amongst these was a chair. We do not need to discuss its origins, but in order to understand its relevancy, you must know that all of us had been desperate to get rid of the object for years, but no matter what we do, it always returns to the one of us who is 'fortunate' enough to have been presented with it last.

And that is me.

Or was me.

Last night was their first night here. I had to close my windows to muffle their screams of horror. Their horror is a type I am all too familiar with.

I suppose I ought to tell you why, but if I expose too much, you may be putting you own self in jeopardy.

But what I can tell you is that when the chair was in my possession, I was the reoccurent victim of night terrors so paralyzing that I know I will never fully recover from them. Especially the blood. I'd dream it was everywhere, and sure enough, every morning , the white velvet cushion is saturated with blood. And there was always a series of bloody thumbprints on my face and chest, trailing out the window.

I suppose I have always been jealous of numbers.

It took me a while to figure out why

but then I realized

that numbers have value

they are respected for their orderliness;

they all have their place in a respected in functional system;

It isn't true that all numbers are inherently useful,

but we give them a place nonetheless;

I envy numbers

how in their timeless being

they always seem to have the universe under control

when I can't even seem to quantify my own thoughts

about the world around me;

But in the world around me

the beauty of numbers has been bent

and manipulated

beyond the stolid order of unhindered mathematics;

We as a society have stolen numbers from the universe

twisted them into preset notions

changed their value

to quantify our own worth;

age

weight

followers

income;

We all try to find solidarity in the fact that

We all bleed the same

But numbers don't bleed

As human beings

we are all victims of the same corrupted system

If we all bleed the same

why should one person's numbers hold more value than the rest?

Why is it that if we all bleed the same

One man may afford the medical care to heal his wounds

while his neighbor down the street

suffers and dies?

Somehow it seems that numbers,

which were supposed to give us value,

has instead stripped all of it away

Because we fail to realize that unlike numbers,

humans aren't meant to be part of a system

We all bleed the same

Yet some of us bleed more than others

and that's okay

but as humans, and not numbers

we do not stand alone

we do not have a predetermined value

we do not need to stand in the periphery while other humans suffer

We may all bleed the same

but what if

at least for a moment

instead of being victim of our own numbers

we combined our worth together

and the bleeding stopped?

I really want to love you

to tell you how i feel

to let words just cascade out my lips

where they have been barricaded behind the tallest dam

of self-consciousness

since I met you;

But I worry

its all too much

and I feel

as though I am a looking glass and you can see right through me

because vocalizing my feelings

will make it all too real;

And I'd like to think of my self as an adversary

or a fighter

but right now I am not

and I can't leave myself vulnerable

to rejection and change

But I am losing time to the thief of opportunity

and I feel you slipping away

and this worries me also;

Was it something I said?

or something I didn't say?

I really want to love you

but I can't yet tell you how I feel

I only hope tomorrow

won't be too late

I made a cup of coffee today

which is not particularly interesting,

(I must admit I am a regular when it comes to getting my caffeine fix),

except

today was different.

Today when I made my coffee

i thought

i thought about the dark umber liquid

as it streamed effortlessly out of the dated kurig machine;

about how easy it was to get my caffeine fix

a simple walk into the kitchen

the opening of a prepackaged grounds,

unlimited, clean water waiting to be released from a faucet

I look at the little white crystals in the sugar jar

and ponder their nature

how they came from a sugar cane, far away

perhaps from Brazil or India or the Philippines

and how they got to my tabletop.

I think about their history

and the sacrifices of so many;

the history of slavery on plantations;

the devastating economic battle that enabled

this commonplace product to be a staple in my diet today.

I turn to the fridge for milk

and again think of places far away

of the commercial farms and industrial technology

that pasturized this milk and expanded the milkshed

and how it was actually a miracle, that miles from the nearest cow

I had milk every day--

My cup of coffee, a part of my daily world

A part of my routine

simple

domestic

belonged to a world so much greater than me

a miracle that history and science and innovation

brought together

so I can regularly enjoy my caffiene fix

7AM, the phone rings, but in my halfhearted state of torpor, I ignore it. While I am wearily grappling with the tornado that has become of my sheets, the first dusty traces of autumn light seeps through the blinds, emblazoning the room with stripes. I can't help but feel imprisoned, as if the light itself has become my captor, driving me from my lucid sanctuary into the real world. Sighing, I finally slip from the comforters embrace.

Per the usual, I head kitchen for a cup of mildly diluted coffee, but before I can settle at the table to get my caffeine fix, the phone rings again. Intrigued by the anomaly of getting not one- but two- phone calls at such an early hour, I rush over to the counter to retrieve it.

"Hello?

"I know you did it"

"Who-"

The line dies out. Perplexed, I flip on the static tv in the corner of my small NY apartment to a local station, and my jaw drops with a sudden realization.

It sure looks like I did it.

Because I left the bar early last night, thanks to a migraine, and in the dark, I must have taken a wrong turn, because eventually I ended up at the bar again, but now it was closed. And outside the bar was a peculiar cat, which I approached for the sake of company. But that cat ran into an alley and in pursuit of it I stumbled across a body and this was bad, very bad. And I tried to run away, though I really should have called the cops, and was spotted by a beggar man fleeing the scene of crime.

Squinting at the light now streaming through the windows, I mull over the imprisoning nature of my ill-fated luck.

I have always been suspicious of the little cat who approaches me, each day, at noon sharp, expecting its daily fill of fermenting cat food and kitchen scraps. He lingers, mockingly, and despite my efforts to shoo him away, I always submit to pampering him in hope that one day, he may content, and leave me, perhaps to another who will bribe him much more luxurious than I lay down, weary with my efforts to appease him. The clock strikes midday. Closing my eyes for the last time, I see him hungrily approach, exalted with the thrill of prey.