i've noticed since you're gone,
i just don't know how to breathe.
the moon drifted away,
the stars have all been sheathed.
i've noticed when you call,
i just don't know what to say.
a greyhound charter bus,
across the united states.
tickets bought by severed trust,
and intertwining fates.
your poems counted four,
but that's thousands of rules ignored.

chorus
for instance, this sinking ship
is learning a lead-poisoned heart's score;
long distance relationship
rule number two-thousand and four.

i am blissfully bereft,
i've lost the things i've owned
that i never should have kept.
moss gathers on the stone
that lies dormant in the mud
under the canopy.
a stanza of stammering,
several words in my defense,
like a thief on his deathbed
who finally repents.
redemption out of fear
is brazenly insincere.

chorus

so what's rule number
two-thousand and three?
well that would be
my bloodshot complacency.