We have to practice at tragedy before getting it right. I never expect the numbness – Hurricanes and firestorms rage in blurred view as I float just beneath the ocean’s surface, Drifting further down as you tell me it’s not working anymore, and further still as you can’t say why. Wailing Italian mothers know tragedy always means death, throwing their bodies on caskets, like a soldier to a hand grenade. They rehearse all their lives little tragedies of Miller Light carpet stains, Johnny Jr. run away, and the street gossip of bruising. No, they are not anesthetized like me during the death of Us, stillborn from the beginning. I keep wishing you’d call, wishing you wouldn’t. Getting drunk as often as possible until I feel friendly again. Nightly bedtime conversations really get in the way of my sulking. And as long as you initiate, it’s somehow alright. I hear want in your voice, hinting what those mothers scream loudly. Death should never be so quiet. I keep picking at Us like a scab. Crossing picket lines to your house, your couch, your bed. Strangely, you let me, and I’m left unknowing which, attention or me, inspires such wavering. You tell me to come over, and the short drive to your black hole house leaves no time for regret. It comes only when climbing your stairs, remembering the smell of our sex, and arguments about God, our exes, and politics. So stand there and let me kiss you, then tell me and my throbbing dick to leave I need the practice.