[maybe abandonment issues are good for the skin]

I’m explaining it to my best friend and as I say it I realize it’s true– for so long now my love and my plans have been all or nothing, the affections I receive have been all or nothing

either you’re obsessed with me or you’re goddamn ghosting

(I mean you in the general sense)

(I realize this is, in addition to being true, not actually true)

either you’re speaking your love for me in a lust-filled recitativo, a repeat until end of drive space, a gleaning out of marriage leanings, a complete devotion in all unwaking hours, the twining through of all my days,

or you’re threatening to leave me on a midnight sidewalk in the San Fernando Valley, asking me how much money is in my bank account, asking me nothing and answering me nothing, sliding your hands in to other hands while I think about sleeping in a park, while I think about sleeping in a snow bank

and so many people have disappeared on me that I assume that it must be my fault

and I’ve still never seen Gaslight and I’m afraid to

and I never got a letter back from that wife in California

and I don’t know man it’s hard for me I guess to know how to be exactly the right level of casual in literally everything

so mostly I keep to myself in a life full of crowds and ex-lovers

I’m gonna figure it out I’m gonna figure it out I’m gonna figure it out

how not to be so afraid that everyone will leave me

because everybody knows that everybody will.