I think you were helping me up the stairs.
I’m pretty sure it was the fifth time
we had never met before that worst night
in the history of The Paradise District.

Your hair was blue when we crashed into each other,
and then I think it was black, red, black again.
Eventually it came to look good in some weird shade
of purple under a baseball cap you stole from a friend of mine.

It was one hell of a bad game of bumper cars
on that street of bullets coming from the arsenal up above
and absence making dozens of hearts turn against each other.

The sun came out at two in the morning,
disappearing as soon as everyone started to panic,
and the metro going up 37th St. was shut down indefinitely.

I wanted to go home.
My fifth novel was almost finished.
There were dozens of quarters in the couch
and not a single clean towel in the house.

I was also pretty sure the circus had come to town.
My third-grade sweetheart left me to start a film career
with the bearded lady.

I wanted to be suitably hammered
when it came time to confront her while she rehearsed an adult production
of Hamlet with those two clowns from the fire fighter act.

Hopefully I told you all about that.
More likely than not neither one of us paid our tab
when it was time to leave the underground
and face our separation situations without sarcasm
or loaded boxing gloves.

This wasn’t romantic in nature.
One of us didn’t grab onto that motorcade
of shopping carts and parade floats,
before reaching out to save the other.

We didn’t hold on and move in
for the kind of kiss that sends the ground
rushing for a better place to drink and wait
for suitable acknowledgment in the credits.

The stars didn’t cross each other like idiot teenagers.
I just needed someone to keep me from wandering
into a bad neighborhood.
You needed somewhere to crash,
a plate of scrambled eggs for your trouble.

No one woke up to a kiss
against everything outdoors becoming
quiet and sensible.

That didn’t happen,
but I still think we could go on
to become great friends.

I am deeply interested in the damage we could do.

04/29/2010

Posted on 04/29/2010
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