lethal cocktail

first cigarette

two coffees in

which i spilt on

pages of bukowski

wanted to feel

something other than me

took a xanax

 

started walking

bought two bottles

halfway through one

with about five minutes

in-between cigarettes

 

haven’t eaten in two days

still not hungry

wearing the t-shirt

i had custom made

with the words,

“i’m nobody

don’t worry about it”

 

listening to my playlist

of the mellow songs

of jackson browne

 

i hate those shows

where the medical examiner

is performing an autopsy

plopping organs on a scale

the brain reduced to

a metric measurement

why did my heart fail?

read my fucking poems

 

getting numb

i succumb

to the thoughtless void

 

as a boy

i remember my mom

threatening to spank me

if i didn’t put on my shirt

while i was playing outside

on a cold day

i obeyed

but i was reeling from

a flood of feelings

that at that moment

i had never loved her more

i can only imagine what freud

would say

i’ve always refused to purchase

skinner’s stimulus and response

we are not pavlov’s dog

 

i may not dance with definitions

or adorn absolutes

but when it comes to

the congruence of our consciousness

i am not a minimalist

 

i wish i could have

the same paternal feelings

about god

but to me he’s the father

who went out for a pack of smokes

and never came back

 

so much for the thoughtless void

i avoid the ploy of complacency

 

street tacos!

guess i will eat after all

a homeless man and woman

filthy

reeking of weed

almost empty bottle of tequila

in his hand

ask if i can help them out

 

i order twelve tacos

take two

give them the rest

he starts talking

telling me how he use to be

in a christian band

and all the things he did for god

i can tell as he’s talking

he was or still is a tweaker

my smile is weaker

then my interest in his words

 

then i just turn

and walk away

 

leonard cohen’s bird on the wire

i select

light a cigarette

forget their frenzy within five minutes

 

this is l.a.

weird wraps around the flaky skin

surrounding its interior

 

a girl in a darken doorway

asks if she could show me the way

to her room

i give her twenty dollars and ask

if i could just have a hug

she smells like the last man

she had lead by the hand

her nails rack the back of my neck

she knows her trade

i give her a peck on the cheek

walk away

open the second bottle

and slowly swirl down the drain of

the dark streets of decay

 

***