Now You Wish She'd Never Come Back Here Again

Piles of clothes on the floor that he moves
around from time to time
in an attempt to tangibly clean.

White walls framed beneath by
clusters of Steel Reserve and the grease of intoxicated handprints.
He has the same gray comforter
she let him take, dense with the smell of
him, night-sweats diffusing the old effect of her.

It's noon and he
lies awake in bed and opens his eyes to stare at the dusty off-white
ceiling fan. He's naked but stays like that for a little while to try
and reverse in his mind the bloated sense of his recent weight gain.

He puts on dirty jeans and nothing else in order to feel that cracking
open a beer and nothing else is justified, and he sits by the window,
tries to think of his new landscape.
choking overpasses decked by decadent palms--
as a good newness--

he doesn't have to think about her anymore.