People Have Questions

People ask me why I don't write
about the drunken nights anymore.
Why don't I write about
living on the streets,
the bars, the stupid decisions
made at two in the morning
when everybody thought
they would live forever?
Why don't I write about that?
Dilapidated motel rooms,
the cheap perfume,
the broken bottles on the floor.
What about the doggy-style lunacy
and waking the neighbors,
the women coming through the door
and leaving before the sun came up?
I do. They're still in there.
I can reach back
and pull one out whenever I want.
I've got enough old debauched nights
to keep me writing until I'm worm food.
But I walked through a new door.
That's all.
And the room I'm in now
has a different light.
There are mornings in here,
coffee, a golf course,
three cats,
a blank page at 7 a.m.
There are things I can hear now
that I couldn't hear when I was drunk,
like the voice of my creator,
like somebody else's pain.

Those old nights gave me plenty.
They gave me scars and burns,
stories, bad poems, good poems,
women I loved,
friends who died,
and enough wreckage
to build a pretty good vocabulary.
I don't regret them.
How could I?
They made me.
Every wild moon night
is still somewhere in me.
Every bottle, every bar,
every sunrise under a bridge
I wasn't supposed to see.
That's still fodder
if I want to go there.
But it's not my home anymore.
And maybe that's why
I write about it less.
Not because I've forgotten.
I just finally have
something else to write about.