spilled milk

I’m looking at nothing, 

a patch of stucco on the wall, 

one square inch of white shouting 

from the eggshell standard, a sanded blemish 

on the slap brush knockdown. 

What are you

looking at?

I don’t know.

Nothing. 

You probably

don’t want to know.

You’re stretching your mouth into 

a curious moon 

just behind me, and

I know because the

air shifted a second ago when your

gaze pricked the nape of my neck.

It shifts the same way it did when I was 

     a kid of eleven with nervous digits

practicing the piano.

Please don’t listen too close. 

         Fingers seizing, heart rate rising,

      hyper-aware then of 

audience. Hyper-aware still of

     audience.

I’m looking at nothing. Maybe the frame 

that used to hang supported by the nail in the wall

wasn’t nothing. 

A memory at least, spackled over now.

Tear the pictures down, patch the hole,

     we were never here. We’ve got 

adult problems now. 

The real world.

You spilled milk on your Nintendo gameboy and 

you’re hanging it out to dry, your fingers are 

crossed, you’re praying to God or whoever

  over its empty-battery guts.

You spilled milk all over everything, 

you moron, and it’s gone sour. All over 

your whole god-damned life.

No use crying over it, 

    over nothing. 

Buy a new gameboy. Buy a new life,

box up the old stale one, 

old stale memories. Easy does it.

Or maybe it means something.