The Young Domestic

The air mattress and I twinge in defeat when his feet hit the floor. I’m awake now though my eyes wouldn’t know it. He’s out the door and into another. I hear his morning ritual, his nausea. His stomach wretches and my heart responds. He gets his sea legs and bursts back into the room letting the door slam wildly on the wall. I think of his mother - that’s coming out of his pocket. But he’s already on youtube because it’s morning and that means morning music. He lines up the same two songs we listen to every day and recites them with unadulterated enthusiasm. He pours coffee, lights a cigarette, and sits on the patio in a simultaneously comfortable and flamboyant fashion. Small-minded people attribute it to being French or gay, of which he’s neither, really. I sit across from him and drink him in as I fidget and try to look alluring. He loads the dishes, gives me tasks, and rewards himself with another cigarette. He puts on different clothes and shows me how to pull weeds in his mother’s garden while educating me on maintaining healthy plants. I try to look patient and interested, but it's hot in the sun and I want to kiss and touch and eat and watch tv and fuck again.

Fate

i see the man in you
every time you let me go
because you don't want the boy
to get ahead of himself.

Mantra

i honor myself
the way you do
preserved
still
the gift we both know
we'll relish in time

One

You find solace and dwelling in people who
Smooth Grandma's antique tablecloth
Over your ever-accumulating trunk of transgressions.

That trunk that rides on your beautiful back.

The sun makes its lock gleam in your eyes every morning.
That's when you cry, and I'm not guessing because
That's what you told me,
Assuming not every intimate word out of your mouth is a lie.

Your vagrancy is short,
For her homely face and finite mind
Suit your need to assert authority and
Satisfy your narcissism.
Neither her love, her mind, nor her beauty
Can threaten your preference for
Cheap and easy.

So your innate and unmatched charm
Sweep her.
You hurl the hefty trunk to its new home on her floor.
You collapse into her bed and
Lose your head.

New fades into routine.
Your only possession eventually to blurs into the wall.
Occasionally, she lifts the lace that conceals your pain
- The pain given and taken -
And adds to your collection.
Even more rare, you stir in your bed
With some menacing feeling you can't seem to shake.

Once you spoke, "How do you tell if you're happy?"