1/12/2015
"There is no woman living that draws breath
So sad as I, though all things sadden her.

Alas, Love, what is this thou wouldst with me?
What honour shalt thou have to quench my breath,
Or what shall my heart broken profit thee?
O Love, O great god Love, what have I done?"
- Algernon Charles Swinburne

Utility boots set down stolid on the asphalt
of the Powers field
by the power vested in me
as I sit in stadium seat 547B

In the cold, bathed
in the antifreeze holding
it steady in my mouth

a fat orange plum on the metal
mandible.
as soon's the safety's off with the
fork it's a

crack light, crack light as my
friends would say
and I think who the hell would
ever do drugs?

You've come a long way, Baby
the box says
and all the ones serious about
their tar intake

make fun of me
girl things, girl stuff
where's your love for camel?
but really. cancer isn't a competition.

it is cold and colder.
i think of ******, i think of you
most importantly

of how i probably wouldn't be staring
dully at the bright orange paint
PRINCETON

and throwing stubbed out cigarettes at
the turf.
the next field over was the one he kissed
me in that night

and i'd thought of you then,
thought of you always.
and why the hell?

it is funny. I know why i do this
i told myself i would never smoke
because i get addicted too fast

procrastinate far too much.
i throw another dead little Virginian girl
at the grass chambers of hell below

and I look at my frostbitten fingers tips to
see if they are still there.
because it is my fault,

and it always is;
debauchery's been my best friend for
so long

and i do not know why these boots are
so broken in,
so sturdy and so very "here"

when procumbent you'd
say to me i don't know what will happen
but the future's going to make us happy

and i guess it worked out for one of us.
i haven't talked to him in three weeks,
the almost father of my almost child
(thank god. . .)

the sire of my sense of
restlessness
his words of "i'm 16 going on 21"
ringing on to me

and making my tongue bleed
as i reach for the bottle of tea
i had dropped somewhere in
the "B" seats

but where was i?
oh yes, where you are  not
and i'm going down the stairs to
where i'd throw down the goodness

on saturday nights in november
and i can't feel my toes now too
so i go down faster

my head reeling
and the marlboro boys and the
camel boys tell me that virginia slim's
supposed to not make you feel anything.