It’s getting to where I don’t even have to
pull myself up as best I can, chase them down
and ask as kindly as possible why it was necessary
to skip the hello, work wonders on my ribs
with a pair of Chinese finger trap brass knuckles
and leave without the courtesy of a forwarding address.

I used to try. I used to faintly remember them
from one of those get-togethers,
where I’m more likely to regret the songs I mouthed the words to in the kitchen.
Instead of some stupid fire that took over the living room.
Or some strip-Life game that turned into a reasonably kinky puppet show.

That psychic tab is going to haunt me until the day I stop dying.

Watch me count my closest cohorts on one hand,
and still have enough fingers left over for a midnight cooking accident.

You can’t impress everybody,
and in trying to do so
I’ve had to accept that I may not be able
to go out to dinner in peace.

Or go grocery shopping
without waking up in a freezer,
surrounded by peas and carrots
and wondering what in the hell just happened.

People lose their goddamn minds in the summer,
but I’ve run into this kind of thing
in November, too.

It used to scare me to death.
This was back when I took medication,
bothered nuns on the televised streets for guidance
and could sit through an entire stranger’s funeral,
without starting a food fight.

Then I just got used to it. Sleeping alone
six days out of the week ain’t so bad,
and when the bad dreams drop me into a thin room in the long dark
I can actually figure out where and when I am
about half of the time.

I’ll do whatever it takes,
put up with anything
to keep my place as a guest motivational speaker
on the misadventure circuit.

That’s not destroying the candle from the inside-out.
That’s called progress, baby.

08/06/2011

Posted on 08/06/2011
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