i have found myself while dancing,
grinding against walls scribbled with
martinis and broken ideas.
i have seen myself through others,
the girl who wobbles through neon colors,
the girl who shakes until sweat paints a fresh new coat.
i have heard my gospel,
through the thunderous speakers,
the screams of people who want a warm bed.
i have lost myself while dancing,
falling to absent galaxies,
trying to find a light to guide me home.
relying on the touch of unknown men,
to **** this star wallowing deep inside of me.
i do not know who i am
when i am dancing.
i want to think i am the milky way,
or a black hole,
gasping everything entirely.

during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
******
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

"Do you miss me?" She asked.
And I, trying my best not to lie,
said how I felt, in reply:

"I'm enjoying my solitude."
We'd been apart scarcely a day,
after being inseparable for months.

"Well, enjoy your solitude."
Immediately I understood the
influence of an honest word.

Ah, that's the last sentence I heard
before I was left to contemplate
the soft silence on the other side
of an empty receiver.

I slept well the first few nights,
expecting to find her back in my
arms by the end of the week.

Our paths never crossed again,
and her phone's been disconnected
(she probably forgot to pay).

She left a few things:
pants and underwear on the floor;
pens (which won't be used any more);
a toothbrush on the corner of the sink;
and an old picture of her's
which hangs hollow on the wall.

Now thoughts whirl around like
a dervish of misgivings:
if only I lied through my teeth
for the duration of a call.

Through this song I am
where my mind was in a panic,
my heart was in a knot,
its drum long gone.
Fateful delirium
like unearthing a grave,
one covered with purposeful seal,
now bonded to chaos.
These pangs are the wind
of a flute, poisoning the lungs.
Heartless pandemonium,
back you go
under lock and key.