The days blur perilously close
to each other now.
The alcohol does not help;
helps other things.
Blunt force trauma has
swelled and colored
the gulf of skin beneath my eye,
hindering sight.
Disgust awaits the mirror;
a child shading in the
contusions of my face
with the wrong colors;
purples, sickly yellow.
Knowing how it should,
but doesn’t, look.

Faces of friends seem
to slip further away,
this memory failing
as cells burn and pop
atop the frying pan of chemicals
that I have become.
The drugs do not help;
help other things.
A tile floor, a dimming light.

Naked, she is a stranger,
and I am overflown
with nausea, apathy;
some thick welling of revulsion
pitted in the gut that I pray
is only toward her
This hatred does not help;
only any good for the writing,
ironic, unsure if there will
be a writer much longer,
anyway.

She ripped a metal soda can
And used it to slit her wrist
Some thought it was odd what she used to committ suicide
I thought it was desperation for death

In dreams, you are back again;
deadbeat dog-days of a heat
that left us trapped with nothing
but the dry-cough staleness
of early afternoon.
The sweat evaporates as it falls
in unmoved puddles beneath you.
The horizon past the windowsill
holds faint outlines of a breeze
that never comes,
of a promise left unfulfilled.

In dreams, you are there again.
Wrapped in my shirt, too big
and loose at the shoulder.
You are knee-bent by the edge of the bed,
pulling hands through hair;
making love with your little movements,
heavy with the suffocation of
a hundred degrees pressing down
on the pretty, brown complexions
of skin taut against your temples.
Air-conditioning, out again,
gasping against the windowsill.

In dreams, you leave the phone to ring.
Your mother wants you home,
your father wants me dead,
we only want to be cold again
It can be a hard thing to find in the heat,
happiness.

In dreams, framed by the sun-soaked
sheets of the bed, thin and damp,
you almost smile. Dark eyes
lightening at the edges.

In dreams, we keep the shower
on all-the-way cold
through long, dry afternoons—
thinking of rain.

You got to use it all, all of it, your whole lousy stinking life.  Put it down on paper, scribble it with your pens, hit your typewriter hard and fast, pound it all down until your knuckles bleed white hot blood and scrawl it out with your last breath.   Give it your all until everything aches and drive it through the cold lonely nights down roads going to nowhere but heartbreak and faluire and pain.  And when the weight and depression kick in and get too heavy push down on the gas even harder and drive straight towards the edge laughing.  Let it punch you in the face until your eyes are swollen and you can't see anything but the darkness and despair and dance there with your guts spilling everywhere and your mad heart spewing out its broken teeth and black blood.  Don't forget to laugh, a howling and insane laugh!  Don't just be the bad punch line, be the whole god ****** ******* joke.  Use it all, all the misery and horror and loathing and pity and let your **** get hard and your ******* wet and just enjoy the ******* pain of it all.  Get drunk off it, get high off it, get off off it and spit your life back in its own face.  Just ******* be yourself for all it's worth.  Live painfully so you may die beautiful. And for **** sake, love madly or not at all.  Don't buy that fake *** hallmark puke, it isn't worthy of the stink of ink its printed with.  True love is only found in the beating hearts of lunatics down on the dance floor in hell.  They may not always dance that great, but man, they are ******* beautiful.