Reach Out and Touch Her

I wish I was the person who believed the things that I said. I look at her and stare in to her eyes and tell her I love her she smiles and looks down. I brush the hair back from her ear. You mean everything to me. I let my lips brush her ear as I speak. I keep my eyes sincere and smile tight, brimming with what must be overwhelming adoration. She looks back elated, comforted. I feel nauseas. She disgusts me, every inch of her being, soggy and too pale. Crinkles and bumps in her skin that were once invisible. I watch her walk naked to the shower, fatter than ever. To be associated with her is to become her. She lowers me. I watch her move around in my shit so comfortably. I try to find the specter of the girl I so proudly seduced, so drunkenly fell in love with. She sludges her way through the sharp static of hungover air like wet mold. I'll need gloves to remove her. She looks over her shoulder and smiles at me, ignoring the hatred in my smile retort. I go and stand at my window smoking. The sky is still morning gray and blends seamlessly with the parking lot city. I breathe in the smoke and my chest is too tight to enjoy it. I see my gay neighbors walk across the parking lot in to the building. I nod to them. Their faces are full of scorn and contempt for me. I turn the volume down on my television. There is an elderly homeless woman wearing a grocery store plastic bag as a shower cap. She moves through the dumpster comfortably being careful not to make a mess of anything besides her self. The snow starts to fall as the long ash of my cigarette drops to the floor. The homeless woman moves through the trash salvaging bottles and cans, somebody's filth Christmas sweater. She looks at me and I look down. A domesticated cat walks through her legs demandingly. I hear the shower turn off and she comes out naked, comfortable and oblivious. She puts her arm around me and buries her face in my shoulder. I take her in my arms and tell her I love her. I say it deeply and with the utmost sincerity.

I want us both dead.