I sold smack on a playground today

    biding time to scrounge the rent--

Two months ago I had never even seen the stuff.
    I'd never procured it for personal use,
    let alone sold it.

Now I'm a full-time pusher of prescriptions
for problems that can't be cured,
a modern-day snake-oil salesmen
schlepping panaceas for every conceivable ill.

Trying to cope with depression?
    This'll give you a shot in the arm!
Your boyfriend just broke your heart
mere weeks after breaking your *****?
    Here's a ***** that you can depend on...

I thought I was better than this,

but who can afford scruples
                      with bills to pay?

Internally
I struggle to compete
with people who would never deign to take note of me.
My revenge is in undermining their immaculate lives,
a pill-peddling Socrates
keeping creditors at bay.

I'd always envisioned being someone's hero--
at least being remembered for an act of creation.

Instead I'm an enzyme for eradication.
A cancer cell at best--
    A ****** wrecking ball.

                 One day I woke up a sidekick
to a heroine that's never saved anyone...

72 hours in
I'm giving serious thought to
drinking the Listerine.

The ***** is it's citrus flavored.

I can't even rinse with that toxic concoction, let alone swallow it,

but I'm running out of options.

I finished my other MacGyvers--
the Nyquil was first to go,
followed by a Dimetapp chaser
  (the cherry,
     not a refreshing grape-flavored one)
and a shot of Wal-fed
that induced indigestion.

My kingdom for a belt of whiskey--
maybe a snifter of ***.

You know you're bottoming out
when you wax nostalgic
for drunken days
when soiling yourself was justifiable
due to your general state of disarray.

I'm the **** that adheres to the bottom of the barrel—
******* in the shower with my shoes on,
pants removed as a cautionary measure.

Not that life can get worse;
nothing trumps waking up miserable,
sore,
   jobless,
     alone,
       queasy,
         woozy and
           drooling uncontrollably

and lacking ***** to blame it on.

You can identify your own flaws by scrutinizing strangers.

I watched a woman
     from across a platform
at the subway station:

Straight, dishwater-blonde hair
glimmering in the subterranean fluorescence;
         striking posture—
     a dancer's figure—
and a thrifty ensemble that bespoke good taste
in spite of budgetary constrictions.

She pulled a circular compact from her purse
the way people in films exhume a pack of cigarettes.
   Then, in deliberate fashion,
she removed a pill and swallowed it.

             Birth control is like receiving a governor's pardon
         in the process of planning a crime.
             I resent her having that kind of indemnity.

I pass judgment on assumptions of character,
       high on the blissful soapbox of bigotry.


As that pill crested the ridges of her teeth
and met the soft tissue of her tongue, then esophagus,
my mind conjured a phantasmagoria of lewd images
on the surrounding subway walls--


         more a reflection of my character
              than hers.

I erased your voice-mail today--
     the only remaining evidence
     that we ever loved each other.

     Notes I could part with--
       penmanship doesn't encapsulate you.

       E-mails jettison into cyberspace
         without fanfare.

         Pictures were trashed
             before you left the parking lot.

Flames of rage
         consume indiscriminately.
     Like a bruise,
         black will fade to blue
     until it looks worse than it feels.



       Strangely,
       the voice-mail gave me pause.



Your voice exited that ear-piece
     like a sucker-punch to a glass jaw.

             It took me twenty minutes to punch 7
                 and put the defibrillating pads to my amnesia.


Whoever coined the phrase
     easy as the push of a button
never used one to erase the only
                 "I love you"
      that ever sounded genuine.

I found a statue of Christ amidst detritus
of a burned-out bar on High Street.

The Savior scorched to a cinder:
the state of faith in America.

I crossed myself and stowed
the King of Kings
in folds of my old windbreaker

(buried beneath the hardened exterior
I've projected to protect myself
from the tyranny of evil men)

to spare him the indignity
of further exposure to the elements on
our exodus through these city streets:

a trifling attempt at reciprocity.

Discarded matchsticks
(blackened heads
like
frostbitten flesh):

road flares tracing
the path of an accident.

We live

between

the silences

and after
      every kiss
we part
    embarrassed adolescents.

Words washed over me:
past the point of no return,
catching clarity at the elbow.

Arms limp at my sides,

a pugilist after 8 rounds with Ali,
suddenly realizing
he had been conserving his energy
while I hurled hay-makers
at uplifted gloves,

none of my hate hit home.


She spoke the knock-out blow
     or, the ghost of her voice...

"You have to admit to yourself
that ******* a stranger's
the only way you can hide anymore."

You only start listening
    after exhausting your arsenal.

The void of
       my mouth
swallowed her sentiments.  

  I took up the
      empty husk of her heart
  to make it my home,
            just to have a memento--

holding on to anything.

     On the ropes,
  disoriented,
skipping chapters to
  take in the denouement
only to forget the characters' names.




But I couldn't ignore how
she closed the door;

Gently-
not a slam
screaming passion, energy.

No.

The door and jamb met resignedly--
children who can no longer play with one another.