They busted me up,
broke my nose
and even took my shoes
when I was overheard muttering
to one of their girls
that I didn’t have any money.

Those ladies were beautiful,
each one smiling as though
their problems were ready to spill out
like never before. Like they felt brave
enough to talk for the first time in years,
and it was all because you had finally
walked into the room.

There were twenty on each side
of that long, black hallway. A large window
between you and their simple furnishings
and a telephone against the wall if you
were ready to cut a deal.

I walked slowly and kept the bottle of whiskey
purchased with money that wasn’t mine
tucked under my arm. I hadn’t opened it.
The idea was to pretend to test myself
and then feel like I really did try when I got around
to failing.

A light overhead danced, fading and then coming back
at the first sign of darkness to howl like the scenery
for a routine movie in a standard haunted asylum.

Everything was a mess,
least of all how I happened to find that place. I was trying
to remember while trying even harder not to fall in love.

Some of the most beautiful
women I had never seen before. You’ll have to trust me on that.
Each and every one of them looking me over and knowing
from the bite marks on my fingernails that it had been too long
since the last time I had saved a life.

Of course,
when the hour’s up,
no one would actually feels like that,
but they were actresses who knew the value
of their temporary fix.

They could make sex look natural,
even halfway kind.

I had gotten lost going home. Ninety-nine degrees
by ten p.m., and I was a little drunk and a little
too busy thinking my way through the next six months.

Carrying that whiskey around, I staggered, mumbled
and apologized to dozens of people who didn’t know
what street I was talking about. I was well underway
to destroying my reputation before I had even built it up.

Finding that hallway was a mistake,
and I can only guess that I had simply
fallen down the wrong flight of cool, stone steps.

That happens to me all the time.

It was a mistake,
and I paid for it when I broke down and spent
fifteen minutes talking to one of the last girls.

We got along well enough,
but it was all over when she realized I was broke.

You’ve never seen someone
show their true colors so quickly.

The thugs were on me instantly,
and I was back on the streets with even less
than I had before.

It was going to be even harder to ask
complete strangers to help me,
but I had no choice but to persevere.

With mixed results
I have been doing an awful lot of that lately.

01/30/2010

Posted on 01/30/2010
Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Ricard