Tim Requires Urging

With the eyes of a sleepwalker, you gamboled through life
red-cheeked and
amazed by the greens, the yellows, and the
dog that may or may not have
been in your bathtub.

Sometimes you looked into the mirror and
you were amazed at what you found there,
turning your face this way
made it look like it
was not your
own.

But no matter, because tender silken threads had been woven
to keep you tentatively linked
to your compatriots,
whom you called whenever you needed
and with your cold phone resting
against your hot cheek
you whiled away the night, twisted upon your futon,
abstracting fake promises under
the fluorescent lights
as opera echoed in your ribcage and rattled your teeth.

Behind those teeth rested a wad that you chewed
and
chewed until it tasted like rust and old glass
and
you let the juice drip out of your mouth
and
onto the nearest friend.

But now these are merely the memories and shadows of antics you once embraced and you rarely call your friend to muse about the world, the future, and the merits of peeing on the wall.
Feeling the loss,
ravel up your threads around a spool,
let yourself be stretched to another coast,
where lobsters roam
and click their little pinchers at your red, red, cheeks-

where you might again open your eyes wide
and look out of the corners,
where you might dance
and flip your black
thatched hair
and float upon the smoke, in the nebulous night, with your friends,

leaving cigarette boxes filled with drunken
starlight in your
wake.