A Vintage I Can Appreciate, Even If It's Not My Taste

I'm going to tell you the worst thing that's ever happened to me
this side of the county line.
I'm going to let you feel my wrist for a pulse
only to find a jackhammering.
I'm going to show you how crazy I am
without asking for your pity in the form of a mercy-fuck.

Tonight as I read Vonnegut-- an old, yellowed copy
she bought for under a dollar (a token of her love)--
fifty-some-odd pages fell out.
It was only a matter of time.
The spine had been broken, cracked through the binding
in two places.

Every night in bed and every morning in my truck before work
I held it gingerly in a vain attempt to prevent the inevitable
(an accidental metaphor rears its pompous head)
while reading the nourishing words of a man madder than myself.
But it matters not. It's gone now. He's dead, forget about it.

It can't join the ranks of the works on my shelves, not in
that tattered form.
It's tainted. It's flawed.
And it isn't printed on acid-free paper.
It won't survive the move. It won't ride the weather.
It won't see tomorrow. It won't last forever.

My blood's still flowing hard through my
OH GOD I CRINGE TO SAY THIS
veinsandarteries
like when I get so...so...nevermind
with You-Know-Who.
It's the closest I've come to panic attack.
Will this be the second book in history
I've started and never finished?
No. No, it can't.

My jaw's pumping now; the tendon's in my neck
are bulging: I'm making the same face
that my father did when he lifted weights
when I was a kid and we still spoke
and Kurt Vonnegut was a stranger
and my father was not
and now KV's a friend instead
and oh, isn't that a funny coincidence?
No no, it's a SIGN.

But I need to go to bed now.
Care to join a liar?