3.02.2011

The Conjugal and the Damned

I pace the porch
cigarette in hand
like a caged tiger
itching to get out
and taste the flesh of the world
or what it's supposed to be.
Even now at midnight
there are some expectations.

"I can't do it yet,"
I shadow-box to the overhead bulb
between drags on my menthol.
"Then it's really over."
It's not so much that absence;
it's that I'm forced to shop alone
but I've been saving cardboard boxes
because I know it's time.
My room's spewing enough
books and thrift-store T-shirts.
Perhaps someone will help me--
the clothes and the pictures, at least.
"No, that's no good either,"
my wiser side counters
like a sweeping left hook
to the clock that stopped last year.
"I'd beg them to stay
for ice cream and a movie."
You clingy, predictable
bastard, you.

Though it's by choice
that I'm still chaste
at least for twenty-seven;
a self-induced dryspell
thinly veiled
as making change.

The old lady next door
sees me chatting with myself
and Mr. Marlboro.
She rubs her curlers, lowers the blinds
frowns at the fate of her progeny.
I can't see the latter
but I feel it just the same.
I smash out my smoke
in the tin ashtray
and go inside to take
what's left:
a good, foamy piss.
Aim to hit the bubbles, kid.

There.
You've said it.
Now get up, put pants on
and go outside
to make what you've written real.
The imagery was decent.
You've almost got yourself
convinced.

If only local women
were impressed
by hearts on sleeves.
Chat Roulette, I hate you
and may move to Indiana.


Currently reading:
"Secret Diary of a Call Girl" by Anonymous.

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