Driving through Kentucky.
Fields fragrant with summer flowers,
spring fast approaching.  
En-route to meet the boys of previous
summers lounging in London streets, fields, and serpentine parks,
And, stairs leading down to unwelcoming basements; as is the British way.
Malls of America now act as labyrinths.
Where the hell can I park my car?
Again, I ask, where the **** can I park my car?

I don’t care.
I just won’t park my ******* car,
in this god-forsaken middle of the western U.S.
Louisville, better yet, Hicksville.  
I pop another Vicodin to get rid of this ill,
Surviving bit by bit but drained incessantly until,
I am no longer near fill, in spirit or in gasoline, tangible but also metaphysical.  
Someone plunge into my depressed psyche and drill, drill,
DRILL!
Hey waitress of my mind, may I please request the bill?
With a pocket full of Xanax and a duffel bag of boomers,
my pockets jingle, (click-clack) as the pills bounce around with
every step, treating addiction with more drugs appears
to be the current stance of the know nothing doctors across this greatest nation on God’s green earth.
Hey babe, “want to walk with me to the methadone clinic,”
It’s rainy out, cold rain, can you carry my umbrella?
I can’t miss my dose or I’ll get sick.
So again I ask
Babe?
Walk with me to the methadone clinic?

London, I turn to your fearless  face. A face that remembers fires and plagues. Blazing flames that I now wrap around myself to keep warm. As I walk, hand in hand with the river. I  taste the smoke of my cigarette, blown back into my face. I hold onto your size, your shape moulding into my soul. I take all of you into the cracks of my skin. Streets buzzing like an open wire. A cackle of noise that blurs into the background yet remains coloured. In your neon bright arms, I have built myself a home.

She kissed your cheek and smiled widely,
the corners of her mouth almost touching her
impeccably tattooed eyebrows.
She was not what you had pictured
from the back and forth email conversations
on quotes and designs and sizes.

She asked you to take a seat as she went to
smoke a cigarette outside the shop with a coworker;
Anna was her name...with two jack russel terriers -
one of them is like a honey badger apparently.

It's funny how the mind remembers certain things...
the way the smoke on her tongue smelled as she leaned in
adding ink to her needle,
or the song she kept humming while you
bit your tongue and stared at the decorated ceiling.

But the pain of the needle depositing the
ink
into your skin was welcome...
It was nothing compared to the internal turmoil you were
experiencing the past seven days.
It almost felt good...
Not adrenaline good, but like good that you were capable of
feeling
something besides sadness and anger.

In the Barcelona airport two days earlier, you made your appointment.
One on your hip, one on your foot
100 pound deposit. No problem.
You needed something to occupy your
mind
from the pain it endured over your "holiday."

So much for a holiday...
Surprise! Your friend is a backstabbing *****
who "secretly" hates you and tried to
ditch you repeatedly.

The needle grazes your hipbone and you wince.
"You okay?" Tota coos in her Italian accent.
You nod, but you know you're not really okay...
You never were...probably never will be OKAY.

Your mind wanders...wishing you were home
and not in London, three thousand miles away from
the only people who seem to care.

"Done!" Tota exclaims.
You examine her work, smiling.
The first time you have smiled in days.
"Get ready...this one is gona hurt!" she says, half excited.
You don't care...nothing can hurt more than your heart...
Too bad that can't be tattooed...