With my headphones I play songs of yesterday
going all around the way doing my work
thinking all about my love and the ways I’m dreaming of
being with her and of shoving all the smirks
off the fuckers and the clowns while I listen to the sounds
of the Beatles playing round and round and round
and round and round and round as my jerking down the stairs
gets me to the bottom floor where I pour myself through the door
into more work, continuing on with the theme of the evening:

Love must be hidden.
She must not know.
If you find her light,
do not let it show.

Continuing on, I enter buildings new, traversing smoothly through
a constantly attainable slew of access points, accruing entries everywhere.
It is here, there, everywhere that I go, always hearing what I need
to know that the boys are with me, warning of what I must do to stay true
to myself going forward, to be free. I see it. I taste it as the boys tell me why
to cry, to lie, to apply the hiding principles at just the right times. I go to work.

Love must be hidden.
She must never know.
If you catch her in her beauty,
just let it go.

The sun is setting in this darker time of year and I have fears
that inhere clearly, constantly.
I should be going. I must be going. I get gone, but still my
Liverpudlians play. They say “You’re going to lose that girl.”
They talk about being “sad and lonely,” about being “half a man.”
I know the song. I know the songs well. I sing it to myself,
without the disc spinning for me. I know it by heart.

Love must be hidden.
She must not be told.
If you feel the words of love,
keep them sealed, like gold.