the girls I danced with
I never wrote songs about

the girls I kissed under bursts of fireworks
I never won carnival prizes for

the girls I entered the sheets with
I never made a deeper connection

the girls who gave me their best
I never understood their motives

and I wondered where they all went and
why we parted ways like cathedral doors
and why they took the hand of other monsters and vanished into the night.

I was too naive to notice
all the red flags waving behind me
and too dense to turn around
and open my eyes.

but now I face this dry vacancy
and I see they’re
intertwined with their domestics
constricted with their marriages
taunting their husbands
commanding their boyfriends
obsessed with their photo albums
cramming belief and guidance into their children

its the same unabridged story
told over and over
and over and over
again.

I too, sit with this adverse outcome:
this one wants me to quit drinking
and that one wants me on a diet
and this one wants me to get a better job
and that one wants me to exercise more.

I’ve never been one to rest on my laurels,
but as I lay down in this bed with this one
like so many buried cold beneath the Earth,
I can’t stop thinking of those angels from my past that have flown off into other heavens.

I was never deserving
of their time nor
their presence

and I am neither
here nor
there.

My imagination is crazy wild
Wilder than Poe's poems and stories
Wilder than Nature's fury
Nothing seems impossible to construct
In its enchanting forge of creation
My imagination climbs
Wherever logic crawls
Sometimes I knock on its door
When I cannot get off the floor
Sometimes it pulls me in
Like a maniac magnet
For it misses my playful madness
When I'm fit squarely on its wheel
It thrills me to visit the hills
The hills of visionary transportation
Where my senses get satisfied
Through dreamy flights
To supernatural heights
Where self is no longer itself
But a pair of variegated wings
Soaring the sky of bliss
Whoever or whatever created mankind
Perfectly knew in advance
That without imagination
Human race wouldn't be able to survive.

a dog pees on a tree,
so what, that’s average.

a baby has spaghetti
around its mouth,
pfft, that’s basic.

a woman living below you
beats on the ceiling with
a broomstick and tells
you to “keep it down!”
big deal, that’s common.

pulling your member
out of your pants and
stroking it violently
with excitement,

hey, that’s just everyday living.

but, seeing you sitting there
on that park bench,
one leg crossed over the other,
with your dog
and your book
and your sunglasses
while tears of joy stream
down your face
after something you
just read

well now…

you
don’t
see
that
everyday.

hell, I thought, and pain
and death and ****
all around me.

hell with no escape,
pain without relief,
death amongst the living
and **** compiled
in the mirror
in front of me.

what I needed was
an act of decadence
to break the staleness,
something spontaneous.

so, I took back my last
swallow full of whiskey,
slicked back my hair and
grabbed the first woman
I saw by the hips.

I pulled her closely to me,
and then kissed her
very passionately.

she pushed me away
almost instantly and
as I turned around,
she hit me in the back
with her purse where
I heard threats of violence
come slithering through the air
from her boyfriend’s tongue.

I bade them all adieu
and walked out the door.

I was an imp without a care
knowing that I have lived
up to the very thing
I want etched on my grave:
regret nothing.