an important object in your
but what do you
what do you do?

I guess I'm just regular
no special what now now my pen works no special can't say I lost all of the what was I what I was aiming for put it through a prodigal massacre with what I did what did I do?

Tonight we never got lost although the way had changed but the black lines raced before the pen's tip could reach them spinning we glazed over the stars and the blue light on the street and just found

What did I do?

I sat for hours on the brown velveteen couch while people faded on and off of it next to me and the cat meowed I sat for days
and realized I hadn't eaten so we put garlic salt in a *** of water and let it sit for about an hour and then we thought and then we went back to the couch

Where did you go?

I saw a picture of you in the inmate list and when we went to your house all that was there were three months of bills and a stray cat hiding in the garage I'm not sure when a live man is better or what exactly the difference is
everybody thinks of the braindead fondly

This whole night
I tried to think of something while I couldn't find what it was what do you do?
What did I do I CAN'T REMEMBER IT ANYMORE but it was all the same fuzz of a full brain roving rambling spilling over sometimes into my body when it found instruments there for an ugly music

WHAT WAS YOUR QUESTION I live like it's an easy thing to do

He is Sicilian, skin tawny the color of
toasted garlic
knobby knuckles but strong palms
steady and smooth and graceful
never wavering as he slowly depresses the plunger with his thumb
pushing two clear drops from the syringe
he ran out of dope so he soaked his old cottons
to **** out the residue
and deposit it in his vein
fist clenches twice and holds
and he dips the needle in
so light
so little
then his fingers shimmer away from his palm
and drop to his side

When I was 13 I took a trip to Alaska
my aunt brought me there and we rode on a boat
along the southern coast and through the fjords
One day we saw a glacier calving across the water
so ***** it looked like a cliff, but when a piece fell away
the ice that it revealed was deeply blue

He'd only traveled in the desert
from Austin to Iraq
but one night here
in Duluth, Minnesota
we lay on the roof and watched the Northern Lights
I told him that they were the color of glaciers

The sidewalk granulated so,
yellow from the streetlight though it's not quite dark

it's difficult to set your feet down normally if you look at them
while you do it
I can't watch my body while I use it, like a dancer
it's easier just to feel

stand in the wind although the shelter is empty
not sure why
I don't ponder my actions while I take them, like a philosopher
it's easier not to think

cigarette burns quickly, the wind pushing it down
before I can pull it
and for awhile I forget about it while I watch it
unraveling ring by ring in bursts
against a sidewalk now blurred with inattention
eyes focus on one plane like a camera

I read that if you look at horizontal stripes with your left eye
and vertical stripes with your right, then you will perceive a grid
our brains lie
and take shortcuts

the heart and the liver work hard no matter what
but they're just along for the ride

and a lot of the time i'm frightened and a lot of the time i doubt myself
not because i don't know myself but because i do i know i haven't got much of a place in the world
no one to hold me to what i am what i have been and i'm scared
and when i saw that same fear in your eyes it made me want to love you
but it made me worry too
one of us could be an anchor
and the other a leaky boat
though i'm not sure who is which

at least we'd end up together at the bottom

in the bathroom
in the morning
I pack little bottles and brushes into a paper bag
nothing left of me now but my armchair and the hole
that I'll soon kick in the bedroom wall

dropped to your knees in front of me
so drunk you could barely see
and your blind eyes cried
as you told me I'd
be your final chance to be set free

so

cloaked in ***** and a couple Quaaludes as I told you all my thoughts one night
and my shaky plans and my shaking hands seemed more fragile that I thought they might
running up my street with our fleet young feet when you took my hand in yours
and with certainty I could finally see what my God had made my hands for

(CHORUS)
clutching a bottle
empty hearts at full throttle
flying blindfolded down a rollercoaster of love
I've got you by my side, but I'm not sure you're enough

all my friends are gone as I write this song, and I'm not sure they'll be back
they got frightened, got mad, got sick , got sad, didn't want to see me crack
but you stood by me, though I couldn't see if it was because you cared
or because you, too, were alone and so getting out made you too scared

thought I'd gotten away until you found me today
thought I'd gotten away until you found me today

(CHORUS x2)

so I lie by you
and I hold you tight
every night feels like
it's our final night

so I die by you
hope that you die too
in the end my poison's
what I found in you

airy though they are,
I can feel the heft of the cigarettes in my pack of Marlboro No. 27's
cigarettes I hold in my lips to think of you

that fall apart now
burning my wrists and remind me
of the night that Jordan dropped a firework from Wisconsin
into the fire pit
bringing angry tears to the eyes of Eric's drunken father
and your friend
a stranger to me
turned to you and told you blindly
that another fire just as bright ignited
between your hands and mine
and not to let go

I wanted to cling to you then
but the world already pushed us apart

I send messages to you now
telling you about my gas grill
and the new varieties of malt liquor that I have discovered up north
(Schlitz?!)

once you told me that you'd like to get married
when we are both old and alone
driven from the places we've tried to call home
and with my Colt 45 and your No. 27 supported loosely in my hands I said
Yes