the adult onset of purgatory

it was a night
(darkmotherfuckingstormy)
when slitting your wrists
would have been as easy
and as meaningless
as clicking the television

after you left
she climbed the stairs
in automatic pairs
and went to dream
like purring

you could have stayed
and been as pointless
as staying

you left
and were as pointless
as leaving

she purred

(ornate encrustations proliferated
on the pellicle of the visible
in a way you could not fathom)

it was the curly curly curly

the curly that you wanted
only the curly that mattered
the curly that carried you
from cut to spurt to dry

in the vellum world
from which you parted
it failed to rate a tick