Stale Bread and Newspapers

Stale Bread and Newspapers
By the corner store in the winding street.
Her tears salt her coffee
God takes a piss and makes it rain
Blotting the ink on the front page
And soaking the day old wheat,
Wiping the modern genesis from her fingertips.

I could have told her I loved her.

She heaves heavy irons down my chest
Every time she utters her saddened words
Passing through my lips like traildrop ghosts
And making my heart beat faster,
Whenever she takes a hold of me…
…to cry on my shoulders…

…and I would have wiped those stars from her eyes,
and would have placed them on mine,
so she would have never been hurt this whole time…







…but I didn’t.

Cheap Tobacco Cigarette and Spanish Liquor
Warms the winter bones with pepper heat.
Sirens deafen her sighs,
And she smiles.

My pen was frozen from my shaking as I tried to capture
that moment on tissue paper and restaurant receipts.

She was sitting there so still
So serene
The midnight crashing down from the sky.
I picked up a moon rock
And put it on a ring, thinking I’d give it to her someday.

But someday was a second late.

Her stale bread was expiring and the paper bore old news
And I would’ve bought her another
But the corner store was already closed
Being this late an hour
In wasted opportunities.

I broke her heart.

And she sits there on her breakfast table
Her jacket keeping her cold
Her tears collecting on her cheeks
Her coffee remaining bitter.
And now, as I stand on these watered steps
On these death slides
On these sorrow homes
I keep on thinking how things would have ended,

If I had only told her I loved her.