It felt like a kiss, tasted
like McCormick or Wild Turkey,
something nasty and cheap.
It collapsed my pride,
made a footprint where a building had stood,
and in that rubble I found nothing
of myself that I could recognize.
There were no parts of me untainted
by ownership, no limbs not rubbed raw by chains.
If I saw stars, they were black,
tiny wells of gravity.
I had no knowledge of what might dwell there
once I made the voyage inside.
I let go, anyway.
It could always get worse,
but what if?

10/13/2007

Author's Note: Title borrowed from old Crystals song. Co-written by Carole King, of course. "And I knew he loved me."

Posted on 10/13/2007
Copyright © 2024 Aaron Blair