The black men in Chicago would love you.
Oh?
Yeah, you'd go over pretty well.
Like prized beef in an auction.
You know what I mean.
I'm afraid I do.
They holla at anyone.
Yeah?
Yeah, I saw this real fat black girl get on the
train with a bucket of chicken once.
Oh Jesus, a bucket of chicken?
I'm not kidding. I watched this guy
give her the look.
The look? You sure he wasn't just hungry?
He was checking her out. Like I said, You'd
go over pretty well.
I know where I'm going on vacation.
Yeah.

"I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down"

---Johnny Cash


These will last forever
and in the world of flowers
that means
one week. Great.
One more emotionally
and socially and atrociously
misfitted man to avoid.

One Month

One month?
It made no sense when I first heard it.
There's no way I should feel better in one month.
I thought about you just the other day
and I tried to make myself cry.
I stood still for a moment and crinkled my
face up. Waiting.
Like a sneeze, it felt like it would come
and didn't. I willed salty discharge to
EJECT from my eyes.
I took a breath and tried again.
No go.
I want an iced coffee.
One month? Ridiculous, I first thought.
But it's actually starting to make some
sense.

Leaving So Soon?

Lying in the nook that is your arm, I never fell asleep.
I didn't relax either. I stared at the ceiling, the crack
in the wall, that box of something I can't identify. I
wonder when will the time come when you move and
I shift.

I've got a toe cramp or a charlie horse, what do they
call those things? "It really depends on where you're
from in the country." I can find my hair all over the
place and that's the only part of me that stays
here.

There's no other way to take this, or give it. I'm
kind of wrinkled and sort of--- a lot of--- disheveled.
The only way to get out of here is to escape from
your arm. I'm not sure if I'm ready to go
just yet.

Yeah, you're right. I gotta get out of here. The cramp
the horse, I don't know what the fuck it is, is acting
as riotous as my pulse. But not in a sexy way. It's a
way that makes me wonder how much time I've got
left.