In The Night

Love is a dream
And I am awake
In the night

Cigarette
After cigarette
And empty pages
With lines
That go
Nowhere

Lost again
And again
But is finding
Worth it?
Are you?
Lying there
Asleep

Questions
And answers
Amount
To about
The same
Nothing
When you’re alone
In the night

Losing Is The End Game

Fighting the good fight
Is still fighting
And fighters eventually lose
Though you don’t always know
When to quit

A Mask

I’m not ready to die
But I’m close
Long nights alone
Are better than ever
My head is company enough
When it’s not clouded
But I’m beginning to find
I’m too damned angry
At what or why
I don’t know
It just came out
When I was all alone
With no one to hide from
Was it always there
And I was just a mask
Can’t tell
Who I am
Or if I was any different
Under all those layers
I claimed were me

friday night

It used to work, but now it doesn’t. Staring at the wall noticing the texture differences; white and peeling. The wall unit is humming but not cooling. The night is hot and there is whiskey in the drawer but it stays there, and somewhere there is wine. Another Friday night and solitude is all I can feel anymore. Today never happened among the ranks of so many others. I thought about going out, for a second, but then I thought of people, who might try to talk to me. Better play it safe. I don’t like excuses, giving them, and they always ask. So I’m giving into that side? You never knew me if you were surprised. Turned off all the lights leaving the glow of the monitor as I thought about writing someone, but no, not tonight. I’m in too honest a mood for that. Instead I read old things I used to like wondering where I was at then, so young, too young.
The phone rings. I watch it light up without noticing the caller. I answered the phone yesterday. It was enough. I like the old songs, and they make me feel like something exists beyond my own thoughts. I believed in a god once, but I don’t know where he went. I was a boy then, and I believed in many things at the time. Now that I’m a man who believes in next to nothing and maybe nothing, am I any better off? Does knowing the truth help, or can you ever know? If I die before I wake, who will read my unfinished book? And those poems? Maybe I should get a safe and hide them. My journals too. Damn they’d be so intrusive going through my things trying to find an answer I left off the pages. That is the one thing I can protect from them. All their searching won’t come close, not even if they knew where to look. Why so focused on death tonight? Is it the darkness? My favorite time of day is when it’s over, and you can sit in the shadows of an electric light. Tonight it’s just my computer and me, but it’s enough.

BETTER THAN THE LAST DAMN THING

You drank vodka not gin, gin tasted like something, and it reminded you of things, which is best to leave alone when you just want to drink. There was a new girl, but it was best to forget her. She looked like trouble when she asked you how she looked, and again? No, it was time for some quiet. A few drinks in quiet, some music, and try to sleep for once. Was it the job, the city, or the girl? Stop thinking about the girl, you’ll never sleep that way. It was time for nothing, not even forgetting. That took too much effort, and you were tired, of even trying. Tomorrow there was enough to do, but for today? There was vodka.

It was so god damned easy when you knew the world, knew what to think. But then you got closer, took a look around. And now? Fuck that, you were fucked up and you knew it, but you didn’t know how, and that was what bothered you. Because if you knew, maybe you could fix it, but like a modern mechanic without his diagnostics set, you were lost or at a loss, however they say it. Damned if I know was a common enough expression, but you were using it, for life with no other means of explaining the world you fell away from. Was it the beginning or the end? Damned if you knew, and maybe you would be, if you did.

You were a gambler, that is to say: a loser, in life and at the game. Even women went faster than chips, but that was it. This was the part you knew. Everything else was a blur, or at least you didn’t focus your eyes enough to see clearly, but why blame you? Who wouldn’t, if they could.

My lip was split
And I walked with a limp
I wished I had one last cigarette
As I was looking for my truck
But I had lost them last night.
Damn that girl
Damn that fool
I didn't feel like fighting
But it's kind of hard not to
When you're tackled
I didn't want to hurt him
But should have
It would have been easier
And quicker
Then going to jail
Instead I got to watch him cry
Because he got arrested
When a few punches
Would have stopped it all
He would've still been crying
But neither of us would have been arrested
And the girl
Fuck her
Not literally
But let's just say
I'm only buying myself drinks
From now on

just a story

With 100 dollars left in my pocket, 50 went towards whiskey and the other 50 went towards a girl. It had been awhile since I’d been on a date, and I was in a good enough mood when I asked her, so I came off as charming for once.
Dancing was what she wanted, so we went to this place I’d heard about that day that played 80s music on Thursdays because I wasn’t much of a dancer, and nobody gave a damn to how you were dancing when it was 80s music.
She put one hand on either side of my face, said she liked me beard, and kissed me. Her kisses were like knives, and later that night one of them got stuck in my chest as she was looking up at me with that smile that hurt even worse. I could still feel it days later renewing that hole each time my heart beat against its tip.
I knew how it would end, it was always the same. I was too sensitive for the one night stands, but somehow I couldn’t stop myself. She loved me for the night, and the morning after, that was what the whiskey was for. I poured myself a tall glass and contemplated the other side of the bed, that was now empty. That’s all I could manage, a night. The life of a nomad doesn’t lend itself to any sort of stability, especially among women. I drew them to me, those ones that were worse than I was. I would have taken them with me, if they stayed, but they never did, and I never had to live up to my promises, though once I’d like to try. So many people I know regretted their lives, but I didn’t regret anything, I just had little pains I carried with me like the many tattoos across my back. I told them how easy it was, to get away, but that wasn’t it. They were afraid. It takes a certain carelessness for that kind of life, and the people I talked to were too tied to their security to get away. They lived vicariously through me, but it was the same as watching TV, they were trying to escape their present lives by stories my own or those that lasted 30 minutes commercials included. Sure I didn’t own much more then you could put in a suitcase, I had no house, no steady career, no steady relationship, but my passport told a story most people had trouble even imagining, that was until someone stole it. If I ever found them, I’d cut their heart out because that was everything I owned in that bag, and they probably just traded it for drugs: passport laptop, journal, books and all. Damn junkies. It happened at the worst time it could happen, but it wasn’t the first time I had to start over again. Maybe it was a good excuse to start over again, get a new passport with fresh pages to stamp, write a new story that was unlike any of my other pieces, and just get the fuck out of here. It could happen easily, but still… if I found him or her. Yes, even if it was a woman I’d put my gentleman’s honor aside because if you’re low enough to steal someone’s life, then what else sacred won’t you tred on? My wallet was easier to forgive. I’d forgive someone if they were hungry, I’d been there many times, and I’d be there again soon, but this, was too much.
The whiskey tasted good, and I was glad I had splurged for once. It almost made me forget, almost. Friday morning late and the sun was coming in the motel room window making me think I should go outside. I thought I remembered seeing a park nearby as I drove into town. Looking in the mirror above the dresser, I remembered something she said. Fuck it. So I took out a bic razor and started to work on my cheeks. It took me about an hour because the damned thing kept clogging up because my beard was long and those bics even clogged with not much more than stubble. When I was done there was only a mustache and a soul patch left, and I felt much much better. Change like that is like shedding skin and slithering off somewhere else.
I had a plastic cup that didn’t look suspicious, so I filled it halfway and set off to find that park. I laid under a tree reading Kafka the grass feeling nice in the shade, and thought it funny that it happened to be Kafka. He always made me feel the world like a millstone, too heavy for me, but it was nice today. A weight dragging me down was better than the marks she had left. I could always get back up even from the lowest depth, and sometimes down there was a nice place to hide.
There must be something I can sell, I thought walking back. I needed just a little, enough to put gas in my truck to get me out of town, or maybe I could find out where the day laborers waited and see if anyone would take me on. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t because mostly they wanted Mexicans they could get away with paying next to nothing because they weren’t legal, but occasionally you would find someone who wanted to give a down-on-his-luck American a hand. At least that’s what I told them I was, and it made them feel better about themselves.
Back in my room I noticed I had gotten a little tan even though I had been in the shade the whole time. I never really burned unless I was on the equator, I guess it was the Cherokee in me, which was nice because I hated peeling. I didn’t really see anything but 2 books, a journal, and that bottle, so I headed out to test my luck, which I hoped was improving.