19.09.02 - 11:47 a.m.

we used to shout the choruses to john cougar mellencamp
songs in unison from our neighboring bedrooms
you would knock knock are you awake at 3am:
i need a model for this panel can you pretend to sew up a broken heart?
we sparred like siblings you broke my cups time after time and i
strategically left pages in my typewriter detailing the reasons
i hated living with you (in haiku)
i kept the polaroid of you on the porch in my rockingchair
reading the newspaper smoking, all balding head and patriarch
taken through the window to remind me that
you are sometimes calm, sometimes endearing,
that i have talked to your mother on the telephone.
so all i can say, and not to your face, is stop it -
someone somewhere always knows what you are really like.