Alexander Helmke

I cry and the tears look like semen stains on my comforter. All I want is to cease thinking about the sad intermissions of things coming out, it matters not from where — I just want these DIY eye drops to abate like construction or war, things that remove us from each other.

At work, the metal butt-urn on the loading dock is smoldering like a Dickensian or Mary Poppins chimney. The butts are on fire again. It smells like burning pvc pipes, Home Depot’s plumbing section sacked by early first century marauders. I used to contribute, but it burns without me…

We ended up at her place, an apartment with furnishings out of a catalog that I would never own. Everything new and not our age. Clean: the vacuum’s tracks incised like initials carved in tree bark, the couch that no one sits on, for guests. Everything unopened, still sealed. I didn’t think we could ever be this careful.

I met her in a coffee shop. The one where Bible studies meet in that circle of scavenged chairs, where only the attractive women wear wedding bands or are chained to their initial-inscribed sacred texts. You know the ones. That suburban happiness: too happy for their own good, like they are running from something.

Approach her where she works at the coffee shop; this is urgent. Use the voice, as subtle as an emoticon scar on your forehead. It sounds like you are reading words but what comes out is Midwestern passive aggressive for let’s get out of here. Wherever that is.