In Case You Were Wondering

I write according to the soundtrack.

I sit and wax poetic
so pretty girls
will read pretty words
and think that I'm pure
magic.

A prophet of predicate
with the answer to why
and where to go from there.

But nobody continues
to write nothing and
that face in the mirror still
can't seem to just
let
it
go.

Mik would chastise me for
latching on-
to what came
before.

But I've been dry since I left and
all this clarity is crushing.
Regrets man, regrets;
this cursed awareness
of how I'm as selfish as
a dog in a
cat
house.

As if to say if I'm not dying
then I have nothing left
to
give.

I'm only best when
I'm grains of sand in open hands
sliding to the floor with
dust and dirt
and swept
away.

I've been up nights drowning
in what ifs:

What if I had been a briefcase fisting,
double-breasted,
upright citizen and
you'd found me
then.

Would that have fit the bill?

Did I just miss the on-ramp as I drove down
the highway
drunk as
hell?

Think of all the North Face fleece I
could have bought for Tanner,
Constance, Madison, and
Tad.

Wedding poses instead of mugshots framed
in gentle repose
against reclaimed driftwood armoires
and vases full of
seashells.

But instead ol' pops was behind the bars
after he'd been inside them for too
long.

But then all of that beauty -
that all night honest beauty,
I wouldn't know a damn thing about
the bottom.

Nothing to say at cocktail parties,

"No thank you, I've
had
enough."

Of all my concrete lovers I
think I'll miss you most of
all.

Thirteen three sixty five's.
Five thousand nights.
Five thousand deaths.

Maybe one day they'll give me a star on Glenwood
carved into the pavement for posterity.
"Here once walked a cautionary tale."
Immortality is so
humiliating.

For a time the
crisscross of the Southern sky
lights and Oaks
were my canopy in a modest jungle.

For awhile I
fed the masses or made them dance.
I gave them courage by the mugful
and maybe made babies or beatings -
either way.

But my shoulders were heavy
under all
of that constant sunrise
that found us smoking
"what have we done?"
Walks of shame
and shudder.


Yet forever I'll be haunted
by those porches,
and those bedposts
and those confessions,
and the daughters
and their eyes.

It rips me up and sideways
a part of me is dead.
The last bastion of abandon
doomed to assimilate.

But before I go
and roll credits on the film:

I love you.

I love you.

Five thousand nights,
Five thousand times.

I love you.