we need to keep knocking until there is no longer a door

worked out for a long time tonight

then drank water for an hour after that

but it is still midnight and this particular bar

is wanting to close

 

i pay the tab and take my drunk ass

out into the midnight sun

haven’t touched my flask

so still have plenty to drink

 

i light a smoke

and realize the one thing i don’t want to do

is think

so i start walking

 

but i’m not exactly a meditating buddhist

who can control where his mind goes

and so it starts to wander

to where it worries about things i can’t control

 

i think about the occupy movement on wall street

did it succeed? did it fail? did it matter?

and why does a nihilist even care?

 

i only know this moment

and the street i am on

and the people i need to avoid

or who need to avoid me

 

everyone else is asleep

except maybe my cat

who never wants to leave

the confines of my studio apartment

 

she purred on my lap while i drank the water

then got annoyed when i started to get ready to go

i looked at her and said,

“i feel so alone”

she scratched her ear

and curled up on the couch

 

conversation is not a cure

i talk to people all the time

homeless people i share my flask with

or buy a meal

drunks on the next bar stool

bartenders

some even ask what i do

but then say they have never heard of my book

 

and i meander like this poem

if poetry is what you call this

i continue to read about neuroscience

physics and political movements

and find no cure for what really ails me

 

which is me

or me being lonely

and being drunk feels good

but it is not the same as arms around me

 

family

a woman who won’t let me go out at night

just stay in and hold her tight

 

well not tonight

it’s one a.m. or thereabouts

and nothing is going to change

loneliness may feel strange

 

but what else is there to feel

but this way

when all you do is walk

the dark streets of decay?

 

***