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[caffeinism404]

Astor Place, 9pm

looking at me sidelong, knocking his arms into mine, he says he wants to be just like me one day

i say nothing, i walk further ahead and count the window panels in the apartments above us.

i’m thinking.

you could die driving on the I-90 in a thunderstorm or drown in a grain silo. you could die out on the street at 8am and then one day even the deepest grooves of your existence will be worn out of the pavement.

short silence, then the curtain drops

what i mean to say is, i look into his eyes and i only see futures

what i mean to say is, i’m tired.

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aftermath

i hide out for days and chew endless basil leaves but it’s never going to be the same!

and furthermore it’s bitter.

don’t let me forget this:

your involuntary gasp when you saw the caravaggio.

you held my hand and complained about the heat

said that i was giving you hives.

and that dawning of frustration in your eyes every time i didn’t understand what you had said.

i’m sorry!

i’m sorry!

let’s circumvent natural migration patterns and head north this fall;

to nip these issues in the bud,

and to appreciate the rain in remembrance of those awful (so dry! so empty!) florentine midnights

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with you, on the street, rooftop, train, and highway…

i can’t help but wonder: what’s the best way to connect land and sky?

both painters and lovers tell me wet on wet-i’m not so sure i’m convinced.

your lips on my neck, i’m not so sure what to make of it.

touch my forehead, feel the insanity rooted deep in my genes, passed down from myriad diseases branches. it bucks and shakes, it’s like

hot rubber on hot tarmac oozing all the way down I-90, 200 miles-per-hour-screaming-california-i swear-to-god-and-the-cops-never-seen-a-thing

hm.

you pull me into you and i try to kill the blistering elation your tenderness evokes. didn’t i cry out “im not meeting you on that shore”?

my ego ignores my own declarations. i can’t help it. my confidence a faux prewar façade, oh, i confess it to myself under the cover of night and beer,

i want to be cared for so badly.

i can’t help it, for you i fold into myself,

small enough to fit into your wallet or pocket. flat enough to slide in with your kroger points card. conveniently camouflaged, or easily misplaced.

well, so what? if this is defeat, where is that final howl? my lungs feel weak and you’d never hear me over the engine beneath us. can i tap your shoulder instead? will you recognize that last vestige of spirit in my touch, hugely arrogant like the roar of blue-dawn yanks in days gone by?

before i work up the nerve to ask, it splinters, and oh, there it goes.

gone in the tailwind.

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The Trip Back

oh the betrayal

my eyes must have shown on that horrible morning, when i woke you up.

leonine March outside the window, unflinching downpour, did not drown out the leering desperation i prayed would not creep into my voice.

i left alone, little storm cloud, bottled and stoppered and rolling quickly down church ave.

then later, on the bus,

i’m red-hot and fuming up ocean pkwy. how can i not wrestle with it? you bruised my body and my ego, face contorted as with acid or rage, or heartbreak.

in battery park i clattered down and out and turned myself homewards.

staring into the eyes of ten thousand fatigued commuters too tired to care or notice i swallowed tears and cried out instead:

i will not look backwards i am on the express track now

i don’t care do not come near me

i bite

i am not the brooklyn bridge or the carey tunnel nothing between us connects and even if it did i am not meeting you on that shore.

then, the 4 to union sq tosses me to and fro, salad spinner journey. my body is sea glass in the ocean. i tumble out on 1st, all smoothed over. okay.

okay. i make up my mind:

i am grateful to have known warm toast with butter and slices of dried orange, so holy, so devoted.

and i am grateful to have known you.

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27HR Stand

about your door you said "do not ring, it does not function.: i said "i'd never met a button i didn't want to push."

i said "i think i got turned around at sherbrooke." you said "silly girl."

i said "it makes me nervous when people disappear" you said "i did not disappear, i am right where you left me"

and i realize you're right. am i a rabbit running rampant for greener pastures?

but oh there is still life inside of me it kicks like a child it screams in protest it spurts like the orange i observed (on the 747, strange 4:00AM ritual) when the man tries his best to tear through the peel

I watch him from across the bus-he's unsuccessful for three whole stops.

then, finally, a victory. pith and peel give way to flesh, he looks relieved.

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& I am doing dishes

Taking showers, hanging

Fairy lights with shaky hands

I hold my harried heart so soft

There is a me that never learned

The way the way out of the

Shadows, I hold her hand—

I let her hold the flashlight

We learn the beauty etched

Inside the bones of survival

We settle in like hyacinths

Waiting for the sun

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Bettanu: Autumnbound

September creeps in As the summer’s wearing thin A new season’s found Early comes the dark As I wander through the park Leaves upon the ground Watch the hands of time As they ring the bells that chime We are autumnbound - SMP 🍂

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open letter for N.

it’s not love

but my heart skips a beat

at recognition

i watch your

lips (perfect, electric)

as you smile at me

how entwined

my heart and second heart

find themselves

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wrap around

i was dead but that was then

and now is only here and i

am less than lonely hoping

only just to see what it's about

i thought of endings

-

-

but that's a memory

i crawled on hands and knees

and strained my easygoing nature out

i suffered boldly hoping i'd be holding

something better now

oh how i love these

-

-

unforeseen bendings

my life a river left to shiver

in the dark but here you are

my star so bright inviting heart to

start up laughing, dance, and shout

i know you love me

-

-

let me be something

i never faded never hated never taken it away

you never jaded never strayed it's lame to say it but

you saved,

and then you found me

-

-

STAND UP NOW AND WRAP YOUR

LITTLE LOVING ARMS AROUND ME

don't let me be the only one

don't let me be the only one

don't let me be the only one

-

you would save

don't make that awful mistake

just let it wreck you and break

your mind, your heart, and your spine

i think we need this disease

to ever wake up in time

i think we need to relate

don't let it waste it away

don't let it break up all your

dreams, lover

peace, lover

-

wrap around my insides

discover

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October

i saw you!

and let me be the first to ask: what were you doing flitting around the Prospect Park trails?

when i found you again it reminded me how much we both had changed.

i wanted to be your berlin wall but you kept biting until i bled and i bled and i bled…

i think i bled out.

when will i stop chasing?

munich? prague? london? new york?

you evade me at every turn and i keep reaching

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July

bare my teeth at you bare my heart at you

it reminds me that i’m looking for you again

missing poster stapled to my face to become the lamppost’s uglier friend

where are you, perennial wonder? i was in awe of your boughs and arches, tea green tree leaves and i don’t know the color of your eyes

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June

i wake up before the sun these days

love like lightening! i writhe and shake

you said

don’t put all your eggs in one basket

i said

in for a penny in for a pound

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another thing i realized

pt. 2

I keep getting up

pt. 3

you will never stop shooting

my body an apple on Tell’s head

my body a pear left untouched in the fruit bowl

my body a pear and you have never liked pears

why do i keep getting up?

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learning to be less warlike

pigeons understand space & time

which could explain why they perch for so long

two swollen hills of an open locket

hinged for life

philosophers

a theory of bobbing heads

I concur

I concur

a mannerism that brings greater vision

unsolved riddles trouble birds too

since mesopotamia

when a rock dove was an ancestor in waiting

far from urban gatherings

of no feral homeland

in perpetual audience with the

dawn

diesel smoke

breadcrumb city

an orchestra

every wing a note

the trill of the third more narrow feather

whimpering in the bell tower

from the twenty six letters of our sacred alphabet

they curate

m

y

l

o

v

i

n

g

human

a war mangy figure

that may return home

to feed a symbol of peace

©️David Sichler

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let me tell you something i’ve realized

your mouth is a castle gate, when you smile it’s a fanfare

when did you become a prince—sometime when i was younger?

(i am still young but how else to describe the years which were eons)

i admit i built the tower but i also carved the door

and yet you stay a prince, despot and arrow-laden

shoot me

shoot me again

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open letter 3

m i always wanted you sunflower and sun.

conversations always cut short i'd carve my body concave for even a glance

m that last part was a lie i just needed to hold your attention.

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open letter

i will ride a thousand trains and mail a thousand bottles of kronenbourg to you as long as you never stop talking to me

m you haven’t even left yet and we’ve already stopped talking. the truth is that i haven’t heard from you since 2019

m where did you go

how should i have known to start looking if i never even realized you were gone?

m i’m sorry we never understood each other

i know your contempt for me i see it in your eyes when i try to confirm a place in your reality

m it’s okay that you never liked me i never wanted to make you feel otherwise

m you’ve made me speak in code

i’ve never experienced real love before and i don’t think you have either

i’ve loved you from the moment you gave me a purple foam sticker, so small, but it holds up the weight of my fourteen-year-old yearning

m i’m calling out to you when will you find the time to answer

m will you meet me in paris

m will i see you in new york