Trying

I.

I am trying too hard. I am shaving in the shower.
The shaving cream keeps washing away, circling
the drain--this is how clouds would look if
they fell into the ocean--and, so, the razor burn
but it doesn’t matter so much to me.

I am putting on and taking off shirts.
I am brushing my teeth twice.
I am washing the smell of tobacco off of my hands
so when I arrive at your door you will be impressed.

There are people who we love.
These are the things we try to do for them,
but end up doing for ourselves.

II.

I arrive at your door expecting to impress.
I am overdressed. I am trying too hard.

Then, we are eating food.
This food and the waiter and the decor
are several other things that are trying too hard.

You are tired and there is a dissimile
between the way I smile and the acute
angle my chin forms with the table.

I spend money. We leave.

The way you look as we walk out
of the restaurant is a bottle of champagne
that I want to break over the side of a ship
to get at what’s inside of you.

I know what’s in there:
Effervescence! Intoxicants!
Enough to get us wasted, to get us
together and giggling under a set of sheets
but I am trying too hard and you remain
paradoxically intact. Thick, tinted glass.

III.
Here we are driving back.
Here we are cresting a flyover with the whole city on display
below us. It’s beautiful and here you are beside me
saying half a dozen things that I do not want to hear.

From this vantage point we can pretend to see the future
but astronomy and physics have taught us that this intuition
is heartbreakingly stupid. Light has a speed. It is extreme.

Extreme to the point of being imperceptible but still

we can’t look at anything without looking into the past
and I stop trying.

IV.

Then kissing at a stoplight
kissing in the parking lot of a single pump Valero
kissing back at my place--unfurnished,
my room barely air conditioned--places we don't
have to try. Drinking whatever is left 
in my fridge and smoking scraps
from yesterday’s pipe and I can’t dance a smile
onto your face so instead I am saying
Smile!

like I’m about to take your picture.

The face you wear is unimpressed, serious
the plastic of a balloon that I want to pop
to watch its technicolor pieces fly across
the room, to hear the bang of all that noise
I know your heart makes but you keep under wraps.
Smile! Read me a poem! Okay, okay, I’ll read
to you instead.  I know you’re tired. Here’s one
by a man who might also be in love with a girl 
who is tired. I don’t know. I haven’t read 

it yet.

As it turns out, the poet is another person who is trying too hard.
Maybe he’s entitled to it. He reminds me of me when I was 

trying too hard but got better results.

V.
I am kissing the back of your neck while you 
are laying face down on this mattress of mine. 
You will not stay the night. You are not trying hard enough. I
am driving you home. I am saying half a dozen things that 
you do not want to hear.

You are not trying hard enough

Should I have to? 
No, I guess not.

We are kissing goodnight, but really
we are kissing goodbye. I want to
fight and scrap and wrap my hands
around your ankles but trying is tiring
and oh it doesn’t matter so much to me.

There are people who we love
and these are the things we do for ourselves
but end up doing for them.

I let you go inside. The drinks I had
from the back of the fridge and your
lipgloss make the cigarettes sweet.
I smoke them. I drive home. My house
is empty and I pour another glass. Add
white tapwater ice. This is how clouds
would look if they fell into the ocean.
The blinds are drawn. I am laying in bed.
I am searching for something to tell myself,
I am trying too hard and come up with nothing.
Outside there are clouds. I can hear the wind
blowing them around, I can hear them. Outside 
there are clouds and they are falling into the ocean.