Matthew Bass
I am (not) Alone Today
I am alone today,
Alone in a cobweb
with friends clamoring
from the kitchen to the porch.
Alone in the jokes bouncing off antique windows,
alone in my own smiles and laughs, and an ominous feeling
I share with no one. I am anonymous;
as a face in a dark pub
comforting itself
with feigned ignorance,
much like the night before.
Did I fall asleep? Does it matter? Do I care?
It's said:
Time heals, everything arrives at a rightful place.
I know that already, it's hell.
Yet I hope
I want to hope
I need to hope,
if only day to day.
I could write you, express my love in abstractions
though you would not answer back, even if you want to.
I feel your graceful movements
as real as they always are,
then you kiss me in the awkward moment, and kiss me again.
I say stop, shutdown,
clean off the beer cans
stacked on the glass table
and you put your arms around me
just before I fall into you
on a white leather couch
because,
I can only hold on from afar,
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