I Don't Know What I'm Doing Here Poem by Jack Otterberg

I don't know what I'm doing here—
with you,
in a dusky room when the midnight windows
allow a syringe of moonlight
to sneak past, and settle on your
upper lip.
I simply just stay still, frozen by a
potent anxiety while
the stones in my voice turn back to
saliva. I want so bad what isn't
mine. which is peculiarly true with
you, you in your slow, gracefully-
still hands. you speak as though
you've cured the virus, or found
proof of God. 'and what does it
matter that the birds aren't here, ' you
say, 'when you know in the future
they will dot the sky again? '

I needed your silly dances with
no socks on. I needed to believe I
wasn't unwanted. I stay here, like

you're really here, with a syringe of
moonlight on your upper lip. but you
left a note on the door in cursive
handwriting. I didn't know how to read
it.