remember me, my misery, and how it lost me all i wanted

1968 and dying out on

long island, remember?

and it’s always been

everyone’s sworn duty to

figure out the best way

to drown

it’s always been a lifetime of

burning houses and

damp basements and i can

love you, but it’s not

gonna bring back lanegan

it’s not gonna bring back

mimi or van or david

and i find myself spinning

further and further

away from the sun

i find myself waking up

alone from dreams of an

imagined past, and you

can’t blame everything

on drugs, right?

you can’t just keep

walking around with a

fever of 104° and

expect all the pieces

to fit

you’re gonna drop at

some point, or someone’s

gonna drop you, and

it’s for the future,

okay?

it’s for the children,

or at least

the wealthy ones

at least the ones who

look good on camera

and you can’t waste

your whole life

pretending

everyone matters

look at the clock as an enemy

you try to figure out the point where

yr life started falling apart,

but it’s difficult

does it need to be an exact moment?

does childhood count?

maybe high school’s a

good ground zero

definitely by eighteen

a memory of pain,

of humiliation,

and then another and then

             another

enough of them to string together

to reach this day, and was it

easier since they all ran downhill?

have you lost yr sense of humour

since yr father’s death,

or did that shit

just not affect you at all?

it happens

hairline cracks become chasms

bridges are built, but they

never quite manage to

span the full distance

some of us walk to

the edge and jump

others are pushed

still others choose to stay here,

to build houses,

to raise families,

bury loved ones

wait for the moment their

lives begin to fall

apart

poem while waiting for rain in this desert of broken glass

your lover’s suicide,

either one of them,

always

a reason to celebrate

             to run

first week of summer

and 90 degrees

body in the

stagnant river

in a stranger’s pool in

some other part of town and

he says he loved her

says he wouldn’t

expect you to understand

the bitter clichés

that are like oxygen

the pale yellow

furnace of the sky

hope first, and then the

loss of hope, and

then what?