5.07.2008

Sometimes friends fight.

Despite the whiskey on a Wednesday, I know
you'd be proud: I finally deleted
all of the Numbers' numbers.
It was a form of groveling that even I
was ashamed of. Remember those days, pal?
Yeah, me neither, but we're still paying
in spades and honest alibis.

Not that it matters now anyway. Bloodshed
can't be undone and that war was too blatant
to deny its existence.
(Women: 0, Junior: N/A)
Despite the five o'clock shadow
and taste for vengeance I am not and never was close
to being any sort of Clint Eastwood; always
The Bad or The Ugly, usually both.

(Here's the one you think you deserve;
Shitty consolation, I know.)

What plagues me now
is the opposite of the Monet Effect: though people judge me
from afar, the flaws disappear as one gets closer; though
sometimes new ones appear when the boundaries between
me and them disappear and they see it from my insides out.

Life isn't as grand through these eyes, Kid.
They aren't even mine, they're my father's
and look where they got him, wherever he may be.
At least the scars are my own, take
them or leave them.
Neither will surprise me.
Nothing much does at the age of twenty-four
going on fifty.

It felt old to drive a friend home from
a party, surprisingly mostly sober, when the drugs
hit him too hard. But the real kicker
is seeing bad luck multiply at the cellular level
in someone who clearly doesn't deserve it, someone
who will make a difference here someday
when this latest test is passed.

I swear this isn't pity, but strength
or an Oscar-worthy fraudulent version
is enough to make a fan crumble
after the ovation.
I'm not a religious man, or even spiritual, just
know that whatever manner of prayer
a sinner like me could make is with you.

But, like the rest of the aforementioned, she'll
stretch a mile before she tears an inch.
The good ones always do.






Currently reading:
"1984" by George Orwell.

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