Another one, same girl. I'm thinking of altering this one a bit, and making each stanza sort of a scene from a play, to work off of the title. Thoughts?

I'm so good at pretending I'm fine I actually fooled her, until I called her later and told her I was freaking out...

The Actor In Me

Short glances and shorter phone calls
laughing louder to cover the need
to slide in my seat against you –
to move like the breeze unseen
would be perfect.

There was a want and you filled it.
Now forever severed, an unstoppable scream.
Through midday and midnight dreams.
Your eyes say that you’re all surface
so I insert schemes and denials. This is unhealthy.
I smoke four packs a day of you.
It’s an achievement for someone
who’s never sucked ash before.

I am excellent at pretending –
Assembling meaning from
broken shards of our
casual conversations.
I don’t know how to
laugh around you anymore.
I tell jokes in a booming
voice hoping you’ll hear and
laugh, and a moment
could be shared like
bread broken around
a table, but we never had
the same sense of humor.

Hold me at arm’s length
because perfection can’t be
touched. Crystal glasses
should never be smudged
with lipstick. Chandeliers
should never be marred
by the assault of black flies
and mosquitoes. Drinking
blood is nothing new. You
took all of mine before I noticed.

You are an angel stealing dreams.
A shower of feathers preceding
that flat tire feeling, and all this poetry
is just rubber flapping around the rim
as I stumble down the freeway.
Anything to get away.
Anything to get you to stay.

Eating Thai food and
biting my tongue, I think
of your small teeth capturing
me. I hoped you’d hold on
forever.
I should have known that
moments when pain and pleasure
integrate and copulate
never last. So pull back
my head and expose my neck
one last time for the biting.
Maybe this bruise will make me
remember who I am.

12/16/04