BIRTHING CENTER

(1)

I was scraping a bowl alone

   watching a movie I’d been told to watch

   when the child was born

I only witnessed the preliminaries

Glad though

Because even with all the joy of a new life

A sixteen year old mother

    and a nineteen year old father

Held together by a completed

    successful night sea-journey

(And that’s all, I’m told)

Makes me shudder

    for much more than a cold apartment

                                                 bewilderment

                                                 and lax support from friends and family.

(2)

And what kind of life anyway?

                 I’m sick and tired of juggling my tie out of

                the way as I rip my shit off the

         walls once more. You’d think I

                                never tire of this. But business

                      is business and having agreed to that

            beforehand I am out. Gone.

So this is this and that is that.

       And somewhere real close there

                are two people

                much more affecting

                lying naked and masturbating over

            the airwaves

Held together

    by nothing but fear

    and a phone cord

And the paper thin and seldom completed

    wall doesn’t fool me; we’re fucked.

                And I wasn’t there then like

                                I’m not there now.

                      I always end up cigaretteless in a dark room

                                watching movies that

                                are popularly quoted and it makes me

                                sick and left out.

and fooled.                           

                Like they wanted me

                Like they had some kind of

                                                sense of

                                                responsibility

                                probably the most dangerous thing to fake

                Like it was gonna all be all right

                                                by itself

                Like I’ll get another chance to hold

                     a baby in my arms

                                bite the umbilical cord

                                wait outside on the other side of the glass

                Like I’ve ever belonged there in the first place.

                Always grateful for the invite

                but I never win a staring contest

                                with a well-rested telephone

                                so

                I cut the cord

                I cut my life

                I make my decisions