Coffee cup empty
a straw trapped in its
inner chocolate-wet corner.
I have a paper
due in time too soon,
my fingers twitching 
from the raging caffeine.

A smudge of dirt, on blue carpet, spreads in small piles,
an empty pack of Splenda No Calorie Sweetener
dangerously close.

I hear a slam poet from my home town
on the microphone
but I don't listen.
I sit behind my friend's black, filthied
wheelchair. 

A burning sensation
from under my chestnut
turtleneck 
sweater
stretches my ribs.

Stapled papers carefully placed
in his bag,
a task I could have done;
I, who had kept in it 
his red folder of poetry
he had never remembered to
share with me. 

He turns his wide, tired eyes
like an infant,
loudly smacking his lips
[I'll kiss them once he's shaven
and made sex into a camoflauged, vanishing whisper],
the sight that once made me 
a mother
when I washed his hair
in the shower of inconsistent heat.

I secretly ran my fingers through his brunette waves.

His gray yet young wheels
are covered in dirt,
touching my knees that
were stained by grass.