Altruism is for those
who can't endure their desires.
There's a world

as ambiguous as a moan,
a pleasure moan
our earnest neighbors

might think a crime.
It's where we could live.
I'll say I love you,

Which will lead, of course,
to disappointment,
but those words unsaid

poison every next moment.
I will try to disappoint you
better than anyone else has.

--Mon Semblable

Life is more than love and pleasure,
I came to dig for treasure.
If you want to play, you gotta pay,
You know it's always been that way
We all came digging for treasure.

The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment

Connubial

Because with alarming accuracy
she’d been identifying patterns
I was unaware of—this tic, that
tendency, like the way I've mastered
the language of intimacy
in order to conceal how I felt—

I knew I was in danger
of being terribly understood.

To me, I guess, it just sums up the addiction of addiction, kind of the guilty pleasure in being addicted to something. I never really write about one thing in particular, so, I mean, it can be about a girl, or it can be about alcohol. It's just basically the guilty pleasure in enjoying addiction, trying to get away from wanting to be addicted to something, yet still feeling comfortable with it.

Why is it so hard to articulate love yet so easy to express disappointment?