terror is a friend
a close one
the kind of friend
kind enough to warm me
away from the things
that might **** me

like places where people
are real people
not rotgut drunks
stuck in the mud
like me

the real people are the nightmare
without them
i wouldn't see what i don't have
or can't have
or shouldn't have

but the terror keeps me safe
drink up it says
then maybe the real people
might get blurry
and look more like me

then i can pretend
that i am them
that is what the terror
can abide

I heard you laugh over the telephone
I wasn't speaking to you
but i can tell your laugh from a mile away
it hurt me and i knew i was being childish
but i couldn't help but think
why isn't it me making you laugh

i am selfish, its true, and i know well enough
to lambast myself for it
but i cannot deal with the mystery
that there is someone out there
who you might like better

not to say that there are not better men
you can throw a stone and surely hit one
but for once, and with you
i want to be the one that someone likes best

i want to still be drunk, to be a horrible mess
to be a monster still
fighting with myself
throwing punches made of bourbon and beer
and still have you usher me in when i return
tail stuck between my legs
i want to be there
for you to pity
and to laugh at my jumbled words
but I can't
so instead i will find a way to get drunk
and let that do the talking for me

in the bars
the dark and quiet bars
i can sit there drinking in the soft glow
of sixty watt bulbs
******* into ancient fixtures

and the bartenders will at least
tolerate me
so long as i don't fall
or drift to sleep
or scream
horrors
and such

and the bartenders will at best
be nice to me
and fill my glass
with whiskey
and maybe the ones
who are pretty girls
will smile at me

the smile of pity you would give
to a dog
or to me
or to a person who honestly
needs it
and is so unworthy
of it

in the bars
perched up on my stool
i am elevated
elevated above the horrible dirt
of the earth
the dirt i walk on
sleep on
dream of escaping
the dirt i am a part of
covered in
almost indistinguishable from

in the bars i am the god king
of the world i create
for and from myself
with the two square feet of bar-top
that is mine

and so long as i have money
and don't look too drunk
i can read for hours
in what light i can find
and not have to speak to anyone
or look at anyone
except the bartender
who wishes to trade no more words
with me
than necessary to order a drink
and most times
i wish
the same

a spider
crawled up my leg
a ******* spider,
daddy ******* longlegs

it came up my bare foot
from the tall grass
and I
slapped
and beat at it
until it was dead

Once a girl told me
that the first time she met me
I was drunken and kept
pulling my knife on her
threatening to stab her.

Months later when we were
*******
I told her that it
was just
foreshadowing.

Company was coming over
and I was high, out of my mind
black streaks all over my hands
still in my robe
in my pajamas

But being a man
of class, an etiquette
I fastened the button
on my pants
after all
company is coming over.

We met up again, somewhere in a dense cloud of smoke
I had been gone for a while, frozen in Alaskan ice
But we picked up where we assumed we would

"Nice to see you, *******"
It was nice to see you to, even though you are
a rotten *******, we get along because of it

Madness kept us drinking, and I was still flush
So from the first light of the morning,
when we scrapped the crust from our eyes
we stayed hydrated
and out of jail this time.

Maybe next time
we might finally be burned alive.

sometimes my fear
is valid
sometimes my nightmares
are true
and most times
i should stop
one sentence before
i do

my gambles of bravery
fail with such easy grace
so i should hide
dug in sand
and buried face

i should keep myself
from beauty
stay to the
dreadful
horrid things

at least i won't
feel guilty
when the morning
church bells
ring.

Come dear
I've been drinking,
and I want to drink you in.

The bottles,
they flew open
the phone
it would not ring.

They say I have been
screaming
But I haven't heard
a thing

Come dear,
I've been drinking
And I want
to drink
you in.

I try and scratch you from my memory
but every time I drink
you seep back into my peripherals
like the cracks in my old coffee mug
you drip
and drip
and drip
until I can ignore it
no longer, but I am not
without my own weapons
to fight off the memories
the terror is always here by my side
telling me what i need to hear
and I pay attention to it
and I drink, long and powerful drinks
letting the alcohol pour down my throat
feeling the poison stir in my gut
and feel the sweet euphoria rush to my head
and then suddenly, I am full of purpose
I have things to do
and a great black sky to scream at.

Sometimes, I feel you pull away from me
And I can tell that you're about to run again
It feels wrong to not be with you
And I think that you know it too
So you run, when we get close
Did you know I can run?
And the more you run from me
The more I run from you
Until one day
We're running away from each other
At top speed

Today the plane rocked
and shook
like hell.
And normally I would
think of dying
and then this time
I thought of dying still.

But instead of imagining
the impact,
and the fire,
and the screams,
I imagined the faces
of the people I knew
when they heard of my end.
I thought of her, wishing
she had bothered to say
goodbye,
or that she hadn't turned away
when the puzzle pieces fit
and she found out how I felt.

So this time when the plane shook
I said
"Let the **** thing burn."
I'm not going back to
anything
anyways.

I didn't know that these old
friends of mine would go on
with life
without me

married now
some
building careers
the others
and now only
i am left
floating in the wind
still drunk
and aimless

where is it
that the see these things?
i cannot seem to
look to
the future
nor can i seem to
learn from
the past

so i make new friends
wherever i go
drunks like me
lost and aimless
and i never stick around
long enough
for any of them
to grow up

The horizon was a sea of corn stalks,
stretching out endless in either direction
swaying in the breeze and
I imagined it had a breath of its own.

We laid there naked in the field,
behind the burnt out foundation
of the old farmhouse.

A blue moon gave us some light
and a glow to your skin

Stumbling there in the night
Rollin on the dirt
with skinned knees
and laughter

You pressed your flesh to mine
I kissed you deeply
and knew peace.

I wouldn't give up drinking
but then again
you wouldn't ask
me to
and we could spend our
days
drunk on wine
and our nights
we could surrender
to the wild creatures
inside of us

i couldn't give up feeling
terrible
from time to time
but i wouldn't have to
since you bring me
peace
when i am drunk
and miserable

i could be a romantic again
like when i was
younger
before crushing hatred
of life
sank in
and ruined me

i could work
and not hate it
dance in front of oters
and not live a life
of pretending
i could do all of these things

it seems now the things we once shared,
the things i think we both felt
are gone
another lost thing in my life perhaps
the most precious of them all

I had held on so long
to the smooth feeling of your skin
the comforting warmth
that seems just to rise off you effortlessly

now I know at least
that there is nothing left for me
no kind past
which i can cling to
no safety net
below the wire which i walk

i want nothing more
than for it to be you and I
two trees each struck
by the horrid lightning of life,
fallen against each other
holding each other up
by their own faults.

this is what I wanted
but it seems like many things
what i want
is unreachable

I should have known better
than to have reached
for such a prize as you

i should have known
that despite your goodness
and your kindness
and all of our similarities
i am still
too much of a beast
too rough
too horrible
too lost
to find at last
some
peace

You have set me free
from you
and although there is nothing now
for me to hold onto
I am refitted with a strange and alien freedom
from longing
and the terror
and though I still am stricken
with a lonesome and crushing wave
it is to be expected
I expect
So now I run
no longer through the fields of your hair
in my dreams
but with my own
childish arrogance
and when the cold winds blow
it won't be your name they whisper in my red and bitter ear
most times
but at least your name is
carved deep in there
among the wax and hair
it is still written
but no longer will I yank
and tug
and try to pull a dream into reality
and that is what you have saved me from

give me peace
or whiskey
but at least
give me
whiskey

I woke early on a Sunday morning
around five or
six
and I thought to myself
"this is ideal."
Like most nights I experience
I was awake while the
world slept
but on this occasion,
the promise of a day
lingered in front of me.

So after re-heated coffee
from the day before
I hopped into my old truck
and went for a drive
on roads populated only
by the silence of a morning
and me

All the streetlights changed for
me, and each cigarette
exploded only for me
a show in the dark hours
of the morning
and I drove around
this way, until the sun started
to rise
showing the light of the morning dew
the weeping earth

I like the way my hands look like in the light of a fire,
I think.
It could be the drugs, or the drinking
Or sleep I haven't been sleeping,
But every year,
When winter has gone, and spring stands defiantly ahead,
I am reminded of this,
I like my hands,
In the light of fire,
With a good bit of dirt on them,
And a jug of rotgut wine in them.
I like the way my hands look in the light of a fire.

What will our last words
to each other be?
And how will they come?

Will they come in a scream,
full of poison and vile,
punctuated with a slammed door?

Or will they be apologies,
written in a letter:
"So sorry...goodbye."

Maybe they'll be sweet
and we two, having lived our lives,
will kiss one last time
and let out last words stay as secrets.

Maybe we won't know when they've come,
and we'll just drift apart.
Our last words meaning
nothing, at all.

But what fun would it be,
If we knew the ending?