damn girl
you look like a million bucks
i feel like a damn
dirty old penny
head full of copper

no sense to spare
don't you dare
listen to this
just get on with yourself
i'm overdue
for the gutter

...come here

i found this in an old drawer, a half-remembered page torn from a notebook that lasted me through parts of 2007-2010. i don't think it ever made it's way into a collection, so i'm transcribing it here to ensure it makes it into the 2013 book.

there is a date in the top left, but it is covered by the one small water stain on the page. the juliet in question is a statue on navy pier, meaning i probably wrote this on break at work one day. unfortunately, this does not narrow down when this was.
---

i don't know how but i managed to escape
with a half a stolen sandwich
that compulsive paranoia made me drop
and a borrowed cigarette
which was used to spark an emotional hardburn
jealous bitter desire and longing
which in juliet's shadow makes me as cold as her
as she tries to stare east
across the lake at the rising sun
a theater cruelly, ironically blocks her gaze
eternally awaiting the return of her lover
but never able to look more than a hundred yards
straight east
meanwhile he rises on the sun each day
to look at the earth in search of her
and he has seen her from above and behind
but never her face.

i shrug hard to dodge a memory
wings flutter in response
shake off ethereal dust
don't remember, don't remember...
smile and conversate
...don't remember, don't remember

i'm sorry my mouth doesn't quite work
i believe one of my vocal cords is reserved
the line from my tongue to my brain goes two ways
and my hands are damned
but my lips are blessed
so come here