The night was spiked with energy
like the charge of air
after a lightning strike
each and every one of them
had their own motives,
to drink,
to meet,
to experience,
to try,
to do,
to ****,
to love,
to live,
to let come what may,
it was a night of suspension
freedom not from consequences
but the fear of consequences
a chance to relish in what their pastors' frowned upon
a chance to make their parents' disappointed
and for some,
just a chance

One was a pseudo-intellectual
he was a college learned man,
a phony philosopher
who was good at passing off trivia
as honest to god thoughts
trying to impress
some impressionable young thing
hoping for validation

One was a romantic
hopelessly addicted
to the fairer ***
with misplaced ideas
that he was
some sort of poet
and not just a spout of
pretentious,
whiny venting
just looking to get hopelessly lost

Another was an on the way sociopath
enrolled in the fraternity of the machismo
with every other word being
***** or ***** or ****
he wanted action
experiences to shape and harden
to be a fine edge
blessed with a fatal sharpness
he was looking for something
to prove his vulnerability

They all came together
people of all types
intolerant in the passing of time
their lives like so many grains of sand
falling in sand timer opulence
fear and inhibitions
slowly fading
like mixing whiskey and pain killers
they could live the night
to the beat of their own passion,
drives,
desires,
the night bent around their will
like moss creeping up fiber glass suburban houses
what did they care?
it was just another throw away night
in a long list
of thrown away nights

the words sliced deliciously
drawing not blood
but ink
furious passionate ink
she was just words on a page
in a human shell
he was just
another who wanted to try
with expendable arms and legs
but still the ink came
the words sliced horizons
not vertically
so as not to ****
only to bleed
and before the cut
has a chance to heal
pens and greedy fingers
jammed into the wound
hoping to take
the last drop
of art

I write this scrambled message
Not as the youthful brown eyed child
That started this. . . this. . . this. . .
(I don't even know what this is)
But as a broken back with limbs
As crooked as my being
Like the branches of the old knotty tree
The stuck together pieces of this version of me

You are leaving my thoughts
Running out like they did
But this heart, not heart
This mind won't let me stop
It will not let this through
But what is this?

The stories I've written down in blood
Are getting soaked in the rain and
That old punished vampire has gotten a drift
Of the scent of this blood soaked page and
He can't help but want to come out and
Drink it down to replenish the ink
From his withered and snapped feather pen
In one final attempt to write down this
Last scrambled message of a dying man. . .

"I'm through trying,
Please just understand
That this is not for you
This is the answer and
The question that
I have always asked
Has been replaced with this.

This is what I must do
I'm leaving to find it.

This is the end. . ."

But,
What is it?
&
Who are you?

"Do I creep in the dark crevices of your mind?
Have you stored me in a drawer along with your vices?
Do I flow through the rivers that flow through your thoughts?
Do you think of me?
Do you create scenarios of me? Yeah, those scenarios that fill the void?
Have you put a spotlight on my body in the center of your mind?
Do you think of me when you're accompanied by silence at 3 a.m?
Do pictures of me flood your mind, when you can't focus on your work?
Do you dream of me?
Do you wake up with tears in your eyes when you realize I'm not by your side?
Come on. Tell me, do you think of me?

Do you get drunk for me? Does the alcohol make the memories go away?
When its 1 a.m on a Friday night and you're with your friends...do thoughts of me pull you under? Do you black out for me?

Come on. Tell me, do I control you yet?

Am I the part of you, you wish to forget?
Am the person, that's caused you so much regret?
Am I the one, that has you hooked?

Am I the one with the power?

Come on, tell me. Do you think of me?", you whisper through your doorbell speaker at the entrance of your apartment.

It's 3:30 a.m, and yes, it's Friday and yes, I've got tears running down my face, as the rain runs down my clothes. But I think to myself, that it doesn't matter, I need him. I need this, the pain, it's a drug to me, and no amount of rehab can fix me.

I press the glowing yellow button and reply breathlessly, " I'm here you sadistic *******, that's your answer. Now let me in, and make me forget. Let me run my hands over your skin and turn your body into braille. Let me feel you against me, and then... let me forget."

I hear the buzz, and reach for the cold wet door ****.
then, once inside the door frame, you cloud my mind and I go numb.









"Yes, I think of you, and no, the alcohol doesn't make me forget, only your skin can do that."

He came in on the Greyhound bus
with deep brown eyes
smoldering like coals in his skull
the lines on his face
and the final remains
of puberty induced acne
made his age impossible to guess
He put up in the YMCA
locked up in his room
smoking with the windows open
drinking Wild Irish Rose
It felt good
as it's warmth flowed through his veins
he felt the tightness which gripped him
dissolve until he felt
adrift in an ocean of wine
He went out on the streets
The city was mostly dead at night
which allowed him the privilege
of being alone,
his destination was unknown
and near empty buses
filled with few unfortunate to be awake
He thought
he might like to burn this place down
so something,
anything could happen
to spur him from
apathetic footholds
their had to be some action,
some life,
some danger,
left in the world,
and until then
he would drink and smoke
and wait to die
and he would move,
from town to town
until the road ran out.
A transient

*******.