Air, Myself, and Vermin

I.

I was drinking out of a red wine bottle.
I had placed my leather wallet
over the mouth of it
to keep the bugs out.
I had run away from her
and so was surprised
when she stood
on the deck
eight boards away from me.
There are things to be careful
of.

People were speaking of
future college plans
and she asked a girl
“Hey, are you gonna get
the midget scholarship?”

Because of my condition
I was unable to tell
if she was looking at me
or instead
glancing
at distant fields
and wondering when this tedious night
would end.

II.

Although I am generally
a good liar
because I adhere to simple rules,
like not telling the same lie twice,

I frequently find myself making
a few idle threats
like
“I am going to stop writing”
or perhaps most especially
“I am sorry. I am not going to call again.”

Because I don’t believe anything that people say,
it probably should not
surprise me
when they don’t believe me either.
But it sometimes does.

III.

In the corner where I sleep
I looked up and noticed ants swarming
up from the floorboard.
Because I am a responsible human
I asked a friend to confirm
their existence
before undertaking to remove them.

(It would be nice to know
precisely when one is first swept into
the everlasting moment of insanity,
after all,
in much the same way
as it is granite-etched in memory
when one first experiences
regret
or
loss)

We had no bug spray
but there was some glass cleaner
with Bleach
and I breathed too much of it in
and so I sneezed for rather longer
than I generally prefer.

It was not terribly successful
as an instrument of death
and so some still crawl
in that purgatorial
space
between carpet
and
floor board.

I was very displeased to have to deal with them
but absolutely ecstatic that they
were actually there.