Three little kittens
Lost their mittens
But I'm the only one
Hanging high and dry,
Run up a flag pole
For those I despise
To see my bloomers.

People are going to walk away from you
And some are going to run,
But you will always be able to measure your worth
In the amount of steps it takes them
To leave you.

I used to date a guy
Who ****** a lot of people out of a lot of things,
Who pretended to be an alcoholic
Just because he was lonely
And the AA people
Had voices that spoke to him,
Voices that weren't in his head.

In Alcoholics Anonymous,
They have a saying that
"Fear" only stands for
"**** Everything And Run."
This is a saying
I wish that I knew
When all those tacky neckties were holding me back.

So it's needless to say
That I didn't have the wise words
Of AA on my mind
As I studied the Big Book on my own.
Instead I marched into his mind
And flushed his month's "sobriety" token
Down his mental *******.

Because sobriety doesn't mean  
Stealing a bottle of wine from Jewel
And finishing it off yourself.

And I was used to getting lied to,
But I felt bad for those poor AA guys,
Listening to his ramblings on a girl
Who loved him
And wanted him to change
When in reality
She just wanted the lies to stop.

They should have given that sobriety token
To a man who earned it.

Give your tokens
To those who deserve them.
Do not put your pennies in a piggy bank
That only siphons down a gutter
In the end.

They say that
Absence makes the heart grow stronger
But all its gotten me
Is an addiction to your scent
And an adamant responsibility
To be true.

Sometimes I feel as though
I'm the poker hand
You should fave folded
But instead, held.

My only fear
Is that I will spend every night
Sobbing in your arms
To make up for all the times
Everyone else
Left me to fend for myself.

I see a lot of myself in you, friend.
Where your scars lay,
I have glittering embers coursing through my veins
And I feel the same about poetry.

This is our challenge.
This is what we were made for.

Yes, you and I may delve deeper into the darkness than the light,
But we are phenomenal at our craft.

Your bio searches into the metaphorical implications
Of slicing butterflies that stand for our love
And nothing has ever sliced me deeper,
Because it is that kind of thing
That brings me back into the reality of my being.
Every drag of the cigarette
Takes away a second with my children,
A minute with my lover
And that is so scary.

With just your biography,
An explanation of something a thousand men, women, humans have done,
You have touched me in a more profound way
Than I have ever previously experienced on this site.

You and I,
We've got to turn that burning darkness in our synapses
Into gold.

Come on,
We can be like they are:
Vapid and naked,
Sprawled against the summer heat storm.
In my vanity I have found reasoning
And in my darkest corners
I have had to cope
Alone.

What do I gain
From writing poetry
On my breaks that should last but a cigarette's time?
The taintings of my self righteousness run wild
With sonic booms
On nights like tonight.

I tread on,
Keeping my neck barely above water
On the shallow end of this pool.
They'll take the poll again tonight
And maybe it will be
My turn to drown.