I'm done with exploring;

she slurred it in a drawn out sigh, but not one of defeat.

she just said it, as if she had already accepted it,
with age (or with the weary white lies that age permits us).


                I'm done with looking for answers to my
                ninth grade rhetoric. Rollercoaster roundabouts;
                I caught my own vomit in a paper cone cup
                only to discover a hole.

                I'm finished with circumstantial reasoning and the
                twitch I get when I lie about it. I'll never know why
                I stopped caring or whose guilt you were trying to
                avenge by striking me so dead passionately.

                I'm old. As self-centered as ever. And just for the
                records, you were right. I didn't love you.

                I'm done with exploring. At all explaining.


she wasn't putting me off like she had the potential of doing.
there was this different air about her, all around, from which
              the           need           to           please
kinda disintegrated and smudged like crematory ash between
her lessly bruised finger tips now.

she arched her shoulders, not from pain, but for what I sensed,
release. then, with her hands finally clean, she snatched my
imported beer and christened the edge of the bar with it;
glass everywhere and that laugh that I adore.

she stuck it in her wrist while the band played to a room full
of teetering drunks. she wasn’t a drunk; just slightly misunderstood.

so on she twisted,

gushed and squealed,

and without explanation, offered me a cheaper draught.