I
Nineteen, stoned, impressionable,
I found you in the basement
watching my cigarette,
we shared your bottle of wine,
ate a bag of mushrooms
You stole your boyfriend’s keys.
We fucked,
Under a nazca blanket
by firelight on the beach
living and loving,
for the first time
all night
In all my life.
Smoking Winston’s,
and watching the sun rise
over the emerald green lake
tangerine shaded sunlight
skips across the waves
illuminating our faces.
gaunt
tired
happy…
in love.
Within a month we’re living together
Starving artists,
I write,
You paint
we push grass
just to buy bread
Never make rent
but we deal the landlord blow,
So of course he lets us stay.
frying grilled cheese on a bunson burner,
no tv,
We watch the opera of the street,
in torn up poker chairs,
holding hands,
smoking,
fucking the nights away,
or dancing
on cobbled, rainsoaked SoHo streets,
through a dextro blur
lips shaking and
hips shaking
to jazz,
drifting out of a club
that we’re not allowed inside of.
Truly this is love.
I fold a paper rose
from a napkin inside
Of a brickwalled coffeeshop,
Because Valentine’s Day is here,
and all the dealing money’s gone to cigarettes.
But you appreciate the sentiment,
Take a black and white polaroid picture,
Hang it from our best
clotheshanger.
Truly this is love.
II
24,
pilled up,
disillusioned,
I sit in the movie theatre alone,
flickering light of romance film
slaps me in the face,
as I look down two aisles at the back of your beautiful blonde head,
sitting there with a military man.
When you come home,
to our resin streaked,
yellow walled
apartment,
you’re too tired to fuck (me)
so we just sit,
drinking leftover champagne,
in unshatterable silence.
You get mean when you drink,
I take a valium,
fall asleep with a smoke going
hoping to burn us both alive.
I don’t know anymore,
why it is
we stay together.
There’s never food in the cupboard,
we sit waiting for wellfare,
needing the needle desperately,
You vomit in the sink,
junk sick.
I hold onto my stash, keep it secret.
the poker chairs no longer have cushions
I sit and smoke alone,
watch the ever continuing street opera
while you screw the landlord,
because we just can’t afford his coke anymore.
That lovely polaroid
is now just a coffee stained coaster
and a wilted,
dusty paper rose
sits forgotten
atop a broken toaster oven.
we don’t dance anymore,
because you say you hate jazz.
surely this is still love.
III
27,
s t r u n g o u t,
p a r a n o i d,
you left me in the desert,
tangerine sunlight flicks through
dome windows of our spaceage
submarine trailer,
and a tinfoil hat
sits atop my now greased hair,
because you said that now you loved the monkeys,
wanted to escape grey men.
Blind Melon plays,
on my dad’s old transistor.
Our battered pickup truck’s gone,
so are you,
so’s the dope.
you left me three vicodin,
half a pack of cigarettes,
a wilted paper rose, covered in ash
and half of an old polaroid,
to remember you by.
I sit in Nevada heat,
shirtless in ripped jeans,
smoking on a poker chair,
and sucking back the last green gatorade (your favourite)
I spark a spliff.
Abandoned.
Propertyless.
Vultures already circling,
my long broken heart.
s u r e l y t h a t w a s l o v e.