nowhere

i step out in a long city cluster
manhattan after work
prickly and exhausted before my
first beer and you inexhaustible

afterwards and among ten
minutes and much later in the
solipsistic venue
collecting brief faces and their
voices and private cantankerous pleasantries
the girl from sarah lawrence insists
that she is not a lesbian well she
was kinda but she's not a lesbian at
this moment she is not a lesbian
she has a boyish charm to match
her haircut and an easy laugh

the bartop populated by tech
industry social misfits and men in
suits for no reason
we slur speech stunned in the
amber light
weathered wood facing off against
the securities of this intoxicated
band of roomed elephants

i get obnoxiously loud on more
than one occasion and i'm not
exactly sure why
i celebrate nothing but my own
casual harm and shitty moves
skulduggery gambles in search
for your scratchy profane timber folded
into the communal noise like wings

they move air by me and at me and
everything in motion only further
hides you when you leave

i remain there remain remain
remain joining
jagged pockets of conversation being
shifted into others sometimes
browsing bored aroused
inspired drunken spreading the
honey of my failures on men
who i touch behind the shoulder in some
kind of fraternal gesture that only exhibits after
3 whiskeys
i avenge petty smiling arguments
remember most names bandied
about and smokechat strangers far
more elegant than i
think i catch my doppelganger in the bathroom
talking himself up out of a severe liquor rush
my feet firmly planted on the sticky floor in
fakeass zen

it will be three hours later still
a friend and i
sit on the sidewalk and eat nuclear waste pizza and
she cries and we talk about old cracked loves and
it is the quietest part of the evening

i think about auburn hair except
i don't think i know her hair
it only reflects barlights and ozone meshed stars
i only know her hair through hazes

i call her and she misses it and i leave her a voicemail
she calls me and i miss it and she leaves me a voicemail