The water, polluted and murky, would kill me if I jumped in. But if I look far enough into the sea, it turns green and blue, with the light reflecting off of your dress, slightly transparent. You and the beer making me smile as we trip across cobblestones, towards the end I never wanted. But that’s how these things work. And I realize that maybe it wasn’t what I wanted. But I sure as hell wanted it when it ended. Give me boozy bloated nights in a prefurnished den. Breathing like winos on a good day. Looking like shit but laughing like millionaires. Short times, long impressions.

when fuel runs low, a fire dies

the heart starts to slow and the mind starts to wander

the words all fall and stand up as lies

past lives and futures I start to ponder

the best laid plans are only so strong

the work required takes its toll

that which is short while we wish for the long

moving through mist, the body with no soul

Do you remember what is was like to dream

when the deepest sleep came in an instant

with restless nights the days do seem

like false memories, though still I miss it

The mistakes were made, the life was lost

payments we shared despite the cost

I am stuck in a kaleidoscope of faces

a slave to nostalgia

Through the filter everything looks like it was perfect

serene

peachy

hundreds of separate dreams playing at once

The feeling of falling in love over and over again

How many drunken nights

how many drunker smiles

how many times did I drown

What does it mean to change when our desires remain the same?

I am worshipping the past like a god

the scenes play themselves out with artful direction

the players and set pieces designed too well to be true

to be quite honest, I must be lying to myself

lying in one hundred different beds

in one hundred different cities

and

I always seem to remember

how hard it is to forget

“Love, for me,”

She said

“Is understanding a person

and respecting that person

deeply. I lost quite a bit of respect for you

and I couldn’t quite recover.”

well

that makes two of us.

a punch in the gut

would have been softer

We were so tired

But smiling

Hours spent, up stairs, down stairs

The good August humidity

that makes the clothes stick

and now aching, we sit

an echo chamber

illuminated with a single candle

grilled cheese

cold beer

tired, but smiling.

Like a swift punch to the nose

This catches me by surprise

My eyes tickle

And sting

There is a pressure
Welling up in my brain, heart, behind my eyes
It’s easy to find a needle for a quick fix
The pressure is gone but so is the rest of me
Discarded on the floor like old socks from last week

You’re going to open me up like an engineer
And put me back together again
Oil on your coveralls
Polishing my heart with your breath and a rag
Succeeding
Where others just threw the parts together
And screwed me back up

When it happened you started crying
And I ran inside to get towels
I got back, and there it was
A red snail trail
down your leg to the shin
You kept saying you were sorry
you had no reason to be

I licked my thumb and wiped away that lightning bolt
Repeating the process
I taste iron

I held the rags to your thigh
I held them tight
And these vermilion minor shapes appeared
On to my hands
An accident you said
I know I replied
There were no band aids
So I held your thigh until it stopped.

Do you remember driving in a six am fog
Hands shaking, teeth shaking
Tequila and whiskey
Working a number on your bowels
Clenched tighter than a noose
This is a matter of life and death
This drive home is something

Your face is greasy
Your hair is greasy
And all you want is grease down your gullet
Some damned thing to soak up this hellacious stew of bile, booze, and blues.
Fried chicken and a biscuit, a miracle.
Shower now. The hot water exorcism
You are pure and nearly whole but wholly clean. But the head is not big enough for the mush inside of it and that pain doesn’t stop.

Now what
Go to work with a pounding head, a sticky mouth, crusty underpants sticking to your loins, the brain filled with fleeting stop motion images of somethings or others
Your whole body covered with a fine layer of filth, the smell of booze sneaking out of the pores of your pores, driving half blind and half dead, that pound, pound, pounding going on in your head damn near like a klaxon.

Survival.

828

I never believed in ghosts
Faded figures not alive or dead
Only showing up in photos
When you least expect it
When you weren’t looking for one
When you never wanted to find one

Ghosts will keep you up at night
Reminding you of the soft light of hotel curtains
Reminding you of small curves, covered in blonde fuzz
The first walk with unsure footsteps illuminated by parking lot dimness
Followed with steps through the sand
And the final walk down the stairs, a door slam.

I am haunted by a ghost
It’s all in my head I tell myself
But that same ghost told me
Sometimes reality is better than dreams.
But now I have a hard time telling
What the difference is.