Habits

I’m in a habit of singing praises
Especially in front of your faces

The truth is daily I pick my heart up off the ground 

Heaving it, heavy, down the sidewalk

I'm in a habit of seeing a vision

It often happens mid-conversation

Of my strung out father on our yellow leather couch

And later his breathless body in a hotel room downtown

I get a feeling 

You, too, have habits

And I want to be gentle with

The reasons you have them

Whether we meet on a mattress, half-made of week-old navy blue blankets

Where the madness and magic poured into separate bodies show up

And as the four become one, in all weakness and strength

I realize my power — and both of our habits

Whether we meet down the block where the concrete’s cracked

Where the ivy wildfires up the brick and the crime light exposes it

We could meet there for various reasons, of one I’m quick to think

I realize the weight of my power — and both of our habits

I’m in the habit of wearing a habit

When truly I'm battered -- nearly always by forces I don't remember

Blows I can't trace

Waning towards waxes two hundred times faster 

Than the moon and its phases

Begging my heart to maintain its lacquer

For the masquerade my ego threw

Instead I watch its orbit fall loose

It's got habits too