Other people’s comfort keeps me up at night

Today darling I am rising

from the lavender bathtub

of self-loathing. I don’t take drugs

to shut up I take off

my pants when I get home

and I stay there, red cup full

of cigarettes from heaven, ghosts

of all my friends between my toes.

I imagine them pouring vodka all over

each other wearing glitter.

The vision is closing in like a tight dress.

Meanwhile the moon

fills gray-green. The shops in the village are

leaking bodies. Spilt oil rolls over

cash like hands, some glorious bullshit.

What bothers me is the weight

of clouds under your fire escape, your

hand strange lines I feel

and can’t, one shared breath

of all the bulldogs in the park,

how I don’t notice an inch below

something wriggling in dark warmth

as if love or hunger never counted

and I was never meant to last. The nervous

breakdown doesn’t end.

It was only sleeping. And comes

back good and rested

smearing its eye boogers all over.

Says you’re an arrogant prick.

I say fuck you nervous breakdown.

It says open the curtains and look

down at all the people or

you may only share your bed with me.

I accidentally say OK.

When I can’t sleep I smoke

a dark cigarette and keep the curtains closed

so I can lose track of where I am

and who is here with me. I cut the faces

out of magazines and pile them

in the middle of my hardwood floor.

In the distance, that good old

rock n roll. This isn’t simple

if you want it to be. What my country

does for me is enter

me like a room, becomes the furniture,

the wall, the painting on the wall,

the white spot where painting used to sing.

Singing enters me, becomes the window.

Baby think of my skin

as the best part of the song. Take me

by the ribs and lay me at the bottom

of a dirty creek where I can

get a good view.

Morgan Parker