friend zone blues

sentenced to nothing ever ending

finger-dangling off a downtown high rise 

gasping at what's reflected back as i 
endure on hold again

scrolling through keypad labyrinths,

those xeroxed voices did not console 

my warm saran wrapped heart 
with their perfectly enunciated, mail flat requests to

"press nine for more options..."

playing pin the name on the new face

every waking day i am   

up to dark, asleep to dark 

teased by a sun i can never see, 
blinded by a neon eclipse,

lost like a stranger in the dusty stacks 

of a faded, illegible theology that 
always fails at the big reveal-

cold spooning in the spooky  

parking lot of platonic friendship

i am too undressed for all this 
appropriate behavior in public 
never kissing and always too hungry 
for the meal i am served no wet heat 
drama under fluffy foreign blankets 

always waving but never touching 
those clean island bodies fattening on 
inscrutably long lists of 

unpronounceable substitutes 
for love