I rummaged through the cabinets
opening and closing
the cupboard doors,
sliding plates aside
and lifting up each coffee mug.

then, I checked underneath the sink
moving the cleaning supplies out of my way
when finally she asked,

“what are you looking for?”

“a girl who doesn’t think I’m ugly,” I replied,
“it seems to be impossible to find.”

she stood there silent.

it was the first 5 seconds of peace I’ve had
since I broke it off with the last one.

after that, I double-checked the oven
for good measurement,
found nothing
walked out of the kitchen
and back into my rumpus room
where I give up my endless search.

I was barely 21
when I ran with this older crowd,
(they were between the ages of 30-35,)
and I thought it was something cool,
something special,
I thought I was someone
real grown up and mature,
I thought age had something to do
with sophistication
so, I tried to impress them with Bach & Beethoven & Mozart
while drinking rotgut whiskey out of cheap tumbler glasses
because that’s what I thought grownups
were suppose to do
but instead they’d say,
“this isn’t that kind of party,”
and then they’d exercise their drinking prowess by guzzling down a whole bottle
of Rumplemintz and chasing it with a case
of Icehouse while blasting Screeching Weasel so loud that my neighbors couldn’t exist.
my forethoughts of adulthood had been marred by the stench of reality
and despite the headaches and hangovers
that paired with the morning sun,
I continued on anyhow,
matching them drink for drink
like it didn’t phase me
because I had something to prove;
I wanted to show them
that I was cultivated,
that I could hang,
that I was tough,
that I could run with the big dogs,
that I was all that was man,
(whatever that means)
all I wanted was their approval
that I was something
after so many years of being told
that I was nothing
and I wanted it to be known that I had endurance and stamina
but those addlepated simpletons were too vapid and clueless to notice the ****-stains
in their pants let alone what I was doing.
we were an odd pair, different yet the same;
we shared the same desirous need for intoxication yet our levels of class
were on a parallel universe.
but as time went on,
the framework of realization took shape
and I began to see they were just a gang
of losers with no place to go.
they used up my living quarters
as their party sanctuary:
people getting tattooed in my kitchen
people snorting coke in my bathroom
people ******* in my laundry room
people throwing up in my closets
people ******* in my living room
and it grew tiresome after a while.
so, I had to kick them out of not only my house but out of my life for good.
decades went on, I reached my 40’s,
they reached their 50’s,
and most of them are dead
but the few still living are more dead
than those buried in the ground.
they’re out there now,
enduring a midlife crisis
with bed-wetting regression;
peering down from the hills of nostalgia,
sprinting towards their
social media platforms,
losing their minds over
things they can not control,
smearing opinions around
like **** as if you asked for it
and gnawing away at the bars
of their enclosures for one last taste
of the honey, the pleasure, the folly, the glory
because they’ve become
embittered with world;
a world they hadn’t envisioned
a world they weren’t ready for
a world that’s changed forever
and after all the wild and lawless nights
and after all the rebellion against authority
and after all the broken glass & cigarette holes
they’ve became like everybody else:
unable to face the inevitable.

alright, alright, the records sound good
and the mulled wine tastes great.

everything here is tidied up;
swept, mopped, vacuumed, wiped down
to an immaculate degree

it matters very little though
when your utterly alone
on Christmas Day
in a clean house
without anybody
to ***** it up
again.

all I have are these thoughts,
these tiny flashes,
you appear,
then disappear,
then reappear
once more.

I can only imagine you bringing us a drink
while we laugh at the same movie
we’ve seen for the 400th time
and the kids are playing at our feet
with their new toys and board games
and eating oranges or chocolates
or walnuts on a white cozy afternoon

but looking around now
while dipping into the 5th scoop
of wine from out of the ***,
there appears to be
nobody here.

I add cranberries, an orange slice and a cinnamon stick
as I switch the record to Leatherface or Joy Division
or The Shocking Blue or Black Sabbath or
the collected works of Richard Strauss
but it doesn’t help my melancholia,
only suppresses it
for a while

and as the dog stares wide-eyed
and the cat leaps out wildly
and the gloomy clouds roll by
and the poem writes its obituary
to a silent response,

the music grips my heart
and squeezes it like the
blood of an
orange

and I am
utterly alone
without
you.