iamyouareheissheisweallare

The match that has prematurely gone out,
A zippo with no lighter fluid,
A star burnt out,
The ash under your shoes that mixes with the snow.
The grey slush and cigarette butts creating tangible undesirables
Right before all of our eyes.

Carbon monoxide,
Rat poison,
Acetic Acid,
The fumes that unfurl and infect your nose with knowledge,
The type you would rather bypass.

The guts of an Art History textbook,
The brain of Esther Greenwood,
The veins of Diane Arbus,
The liver of Charles Bukowski,
The chemical imbalances of Sylvia Plath.

Every locked door you’ve tried to barge through without a key,
Every wall you’ve slid down to the base of in defeat,
Every phrase you’ve shouted in private that you would never repeat,
Every folded and pressed shirt that you’ve kept so neat,
Every pair of sunglasses you’ve worn so they couldn’t see.

Erratic dramatic hypertension,
The shakes and the sweats in the middle of the night,
The tangle of those covers with someone else’s legs other than your own.
The antithesis of kitsch,
The ultimate opus,
The birth of creative genius and creative craziness.

The aged oak of the bar,
Where the amount of dirt and scratches overwhelm the patron.
The burn marks from the age when cigarettes weren’t barred,
Littering the oak like track marks on a junkie’s arms.
The dirty, empty pint glasses that surround you,
Drained like the Mojave,
Leaving you endlessly unsatisfied.

The last thing you see before you shut your eyelids,
The first thing you see painted against the redness
When dawn peeks over the horizon like a little child
Playing hide and seek with the hills of his covers.
The novel you curl up with before you go to sleep
That you have read at least a hundred times,
But it never goes stale and stays immortal.