At the party...
talking to my best friend's older brother.
He's a few years out of law school.

He sues small oil companies for environmental reasons.
But represents medium-sized ones
for some reason that I can't care to retain.
Net-neutral enough...
I suppose.

I get the feeling that he feels out of place.
That he'd rather be talking to someone
more similar.
More naturally engaged.

I can't blame him.
I feel the same way
myself.

I'm snorting coke in the bathroom
And what's sad is I'm thinking of you
I lost myself yet once again
I lost myself and I lost you, too.

It's 8 months since I last saw you,
I talked to you once from a Texas jail cell.
The clock it was ticking
And I knew that was well
fitting for the love that we had.

I'm not sure that you will read this
I'm not that I want you to.

I've spent this whole summer
Snorting coke in various bathrooms.
I can't claim that I've always thought of you.
But I can't claim that I am alone.

You are, you will
Forever haunt me.
Just like how these poems
Always fall apart.
I lose track of rhyme
And of reason
But never of thoughts of you.

Ashley,
I will love you always.
Even though
We've drifted along.
The paths we've always needed
To float upon.

Even though
I still die in my sleep.
All the time.
Every night.
I think of you
and then I die.

And you are a ghost
And I love you too
Always and forever
I will think of you.

I 'm drunk on a park bench
You won't leave my mind.

How typical I think
Yet another man who thinks
That he can take your mind.

You're suffering without me.
You suffered so much with me.

What else is there to say?
I'm snorting coke in the bathroom
Of a bar where I don't want to be.
I don't want to be thinking of you
Yet still you penetrate my night.

Maybe this will
make more sense
in the morning

Maybe this will
make more sense
with a bullet in my skull

Please not again
I don't think I can take it this time
I don't have anything left

We drank tequila straight from the bottle
and danced naked in the unfenced backyard

We chainsmoked the entire pack
And argued the difference between harassment and assault

We passed around the **** pen
and I don't remember what we were doing by that point

We woke up still naked
and asked ourselves if it was worth it

And I talk too much about politics
And people watching
And other things that no one seems
To care about

I walk alone at night
And watch the people pass me by

I'm not sure if I'm happy
Or if I'm sad
Or if that even
really
******* matters

What's great about this whole situation
is how easy it is
to fall back into old habits.

A subtle benefit to male privilege:
being able to have anorexia
without anyone batting an eye.