I thought she was drunk
the first time our
chakras crossed.

But when I finally entered
her realm I realized that
her mind isn't intoxicated,
rather her heart is free.  

She loves France
though she's never been...
She loves the illusion of
a society full of hearts full of
sorrow.

But it isn't real! It never is.
France is a fictional reality--
a technicolor hot mess!  A song
pirouetting in a black and white film

She doesn't need herbs or
chemicals to be herself.
And I don't need them to **** me either!
She is her own drug
and she is high on herself

The screen is a madhouse
of body-building, ego-boosting,
and bad gig recordings.

I see her bronzing in the beach,
applying lotion and laughing
with a new friend.

I'm still stuck in the snow,
watching her skirt in the breeze.
I chain coffee in the morning

to counter sobriety,
to show that I know her more
than just by the light of the moon.

In sunglasses, we'll meet somewhere
neutral; an escape route to run
if the patient becomes lunatic again.

She'll administer the pill
from her pockets to ensure I'll flat-line
through her absences,

and then resurrect when she's lost her
appetite. Far away from this
selfish depression, I dream

of us painting a wall. Nothing dies
when it is made into memory;
nothing lives without your early morning call.

If you had seen the poems I'd written,
left closed in a drawer,
or else in an envelope unsent,
you would lay down your tools
and cynicism, for in me;
there can be no risk.

If you had heard my words of silence,
as I troubled the streets,
forming ways to display my longing,
you would lay down your drink,
for I would hold you
into sleep.

Summer arrives
in animation of limb,
to ramble the forest,
to reflect upon sin.
I keep smoking cigarettes
in the drunk-talk of friends,
I will kiss her on the cheek,
I will slur to her
my amends.
Summer arrives
in the advent of love,
I will settle my debts
with the great skies above.

I’m full of
the *******
that resides in my
corridors—
these hedonists that slice
at my skin and my soul.

I’m old and tiredly awake.
The ******* won’t let me sleep.
They bite my guts with greedy teeth.  
I become water…I become grain…
sowed by sadism and adultery.

They transfuse
into me and
I evolve into
something horribly new.

No more my artistic aura,
my classical sense—
Just a specter of gloom
and dust floating
in the structure of a self I can’t really recall.

This is my holy downfall.

I had a lover in Calgary
who used to paint the mountains.
She was all words
and no ***, and so I was bound
to hurt her eventually.

I had a lover in Monteverde.
We would take the sky walk to the clouds
and lighten heads with wine.
I could never stand out from the beauty
that surrounded us.

I had a lover in Chernobyl
who used to collect children's shoes.
She was all memory
and no life, living in the fallout
of love and love's decay.

I had a lover in Alice Springs.
We would **** and drink in her shanty house
and argue through till morn.
I could never stand the sight of sorrow
and aboriginal rust.

I had a lover in every country.
They kept me from the sports news with gifts
of poets and good music.
For all the kindness they had offered,
I never had a speck to give in return.