 the first is called the corners of my bed smell like different men I just broke up with my boyfriend of five and a half years so I've been writing a lot of angry ex-girlfriend poems yeah okay the corners of my bed smell like different men the corners of my bed smell like different men I've invited to help me forget you to mask your scent bottom left the artist whose name I forget his large rough hands that smelled like turpentine and clay the sheets between my legs like that baby-faced bartender who left bite marks on my thighs then kissed them back to bruise the bank teller his blue shirt and bluer a tie wrapped around my neck twice and flung to the bottom right he fucked like we used to fight the bed lays twisted and unmade I can ring out the sweat and bodies but won't let the odors seep into the mattress let the stench permeate anything to drive you out last week I fucked a guy because you share a name I wanted to scream it over and over at the ceiling rake it up and down his spine like I used to yours it was almost the same I let him come twice and scratched you a letter bright red into his back I wake up naked sweaty sheets stuck to my skin I tug back a small tear into a fist-sized hole and I look inside it's space to bury my fist-sized heart I consider it then there was that college kid linguistics eager to do it kept saying do it only to stammer something thereafter about soccer and homework and Dustin Hoffman his face flushed panting his pants still around his ankles oh his mismatched socks I made him a sandwich and drove him to his dorm room did I tell you he wanted to call me mommy yesterday I kissed a father of two and left him confused in a parking lot after we did it in the back of his sob fucking elsewhere seemed beside the point and for the first time I wanted to be alone in bed the truth is for months I craved you I mourned you in celibacy as though that made a difference I wanted to smell you more than to kiss you I wanted to burrow and coil up with you in silence the way animals speak with their bodies I made home and waited and waited I don't love you anymore and I want to feel mammalian again once I almost did I slept with a man who offered me breakfast real slow I let him lean into the soft and the raw we danced in the kitchen and he was gone by morning hating him made me hate you more darling I fucked myself into a cage I thought about lighting a funeral pyre in my bedroom fed at memories of your head in my lap dirty sheets all my love and want and mistakes your belongings the bed me I fell asleep on fire your sense still mine I dreamt and dreamt and dreamt I was dreaming excited to show you my love on fire the fish shaped heart my new sob the black hole in my chest healing I woke up my body tucked into the crook of your arm my face smashed against your armpit and you still so still in your sleep and breathing our chests rising and falling as though we were again a singular thing we laid this way until dream gave way to greed I opened my eyes I wanted to see you because knowing doesn't trump this kind of hope the one in hand with heartbreak the one that believes at least a little in its own magic no magic under lid just my two arms wrapped around my body the ache of the cold wood floor no magic just me clutching fistfuls of my body where you linger still my skin my hair all the flesh and softness the broken animal of my body turned inward a cornered groping to touch to be felt choking on breathfuls of you only you your scent and everyone everything thank you all right I have another depressing piece for you guys yeah let's be sad together all right this one is called and am I like an unseating okay I tend to mumble all right good all right this one's called club med when Jim lost his mind he drove to the Redwood seeking answers when Lisa broke her own heart she too headed north and laid down to sleep Dave left Wyoming because the sky was too big to hold smashed up around him there was nobody there now he sits at home in Berkeley listening to traffic he says he plays piano but I don't believe him all of these things I could not write in there with them around the table littered with crayons and feelings we learned to name our darkness how to make friends with the void the one in the hole in your chest you could only access the fourth floor by exiting on the third and waiting for the special lift for fun we hovered in the hall to see who would come out of which door looking for something of ourselves in them wondering if we could spot one of our own the way we arrived buckled kicking asleep and dreaming failures all like us Katie knew the color codes gray for restraint blue for a sprinter they put Charlie on an MAOI which meant he had to give up gluten no soy sauce or bread so be it we'd give up anything for answers we would remeron made Angela sleepy Dan lost ten pounds on well butron lexapro calm the waves of terror respaired all made the voices stop all these things I tried to write over and over again we spoke in hush tones in the cafeteria ignored those who kept a wide berth around the table climbed claimed by the mental health kids on floor three when things don't make sense the company of others like you might be enough to keep going it might one day Charlie didn't come back and they wouldn't tell us where I stocked up and down the hall looking for clues I found a cigarette butt that I swear was his it just felt that way I left that night thinking about Charlie and the elevator and Jim at home thinking about the redwoods it was enough to make me want a different way a different road than the one I took look where it got me if you are as confused as I am don't head north you'll end up here I wanted to ask Jim if it existed at all north I mean where I'm told the pines grow tall where I am told the pines have answers thank you