These slights only meet me
Like a stray kiss on the cheek
The kinds you dream of at 13,
Moments made to be stretched
And puttied minutes, days, years after
The best, the most incongruous and shameful,
The most despised,
The kind that curl your toes
And sour the stomach
At that introspective drunkenness
One foot grounded, one knee tingling numb
On the bar;
Oh, she came, oh she went
Those poetical revelations at the bar
Our best ideas on human suffering
Forgotten to write down,
Fuel for the manuscript, pressed
In dirt and blood, soul and spit
Another, another, whilst all others
Run for the rip tickets and defaming hope
Each lose a sneer and a cyclical hoping.
Never once, in love or lottery,
Do you suspect
Maybe lady luck is chasing other hands tonight
While you’re chasing those loses
And maybe, leave the lotto machine alone for a spell
Yeah,
That’ll teach it a thing or two.
But who hasn’t loved vice
Just a little too close?
Whispered a promise to appetite
Before lying down for good?
I loved her like everyone else,
And it’s still a single paystub dissolved
Without recourse or cause for revenge.
But she, vice, I can share with others
Being the only thing I’ve ever thought
Of stealing
Was a glance into that torn dress
Looking for a pattern
Or that wayward hand across my cheek.