Dizzy.

John, do you remember the money we would scrape
to get the most we could?
I'll tell you now,
I haven't seen such sick desperation in quite some time.
But here I am.
And it was hard to say "I'll never drink M.D. 20/20 again"
knowing full well it's $2.99 for a 750.
Oh, how we stumbled!
Not enough for food,
but enough to keep our guts burning.

In our facedown months.
In our tired hearts.
In a loneliness that would have killed me if you weren't there.

John, you were just as bad an influence to me as I was to you.
We're still wrapped around the bowl, let's not get confused here.
But my college professor is working this thanksgiving
because he has "so much to catch up on."
It seems everyone we know is playing "catch up".

Meanwhile, I know Mad Dog is still $2.99 (INCLUDING TAX!)
Who is the sick bastard who did this to us?
They make Disneyland unaffordable and keep
MAD DOG AT $2.99!
It puts us right where they want us-
drunk and poor.
It's so expensive to be sober and happy
and so easy to stay drunk and poor.

What are we supposed to do?
How do we save enough to get out of this mess?

New

Broke as fuck,
but always managing to get my half for the rack.
Drunk, dumb, and distant-
stumbling towards sunset
and the things I've kept in my horizon.
It's easier to always want something than just get it.


Oh, I have dabbled in love (or was it just useless?)
but that killed the "hunt".
They give, but not enough.
Most get NERVOUS and lie.
She wanted "Truth" tattooed on her bottom lip
while I knew she had fake front teeth.
If that's not a metaphor, I don't know what is.
But I'm still skipping stones & class,
and both keep my mind off it all.
What I had and "lost" (YEAH RIGHT!)
I gained more in my "loss" than most gain
staying tongue-tied to some toothless liar.
But I actually feel sorry for the new guy.
No hard feelings?
Man, your girl calls drunk,
tries to assemble the patchwork,
fails,
and has the nerve to crawl back into your bed.

Back to the jungle.
I was born hungry and I'm still starving.

The Secret To Happiness.

Listen, love, and listen good.
I'm only gonna say this once,
so hear me out.
...I figured out the secret!
Ready?

STAY DRUNK.

That's right! Stay drunk!
Nobody was looking at me,
and right when I noticed,
I figured it out.
Get drunk off work.
Get drunk off your friends.
Get drunk off a girl, off love,
off the Italian cold-cut you got that day.
Get drunk off your rot-gut whiskey or wine (depending on preference).
Get drunk off a fucking book if you want,
or maybe even this poem.
Get it, and keep it.

But listen, love, and this is the most important part.
NEVER get shit-faced.
You'll get sick of it, or just sick (believe me).
Stay drunk on it all long enough to keep interested.
Too much will keep you in bed, or worse, the bathroom floor.
Anyways, love what you're doing.
Keep the taste in the back of your mouth when things get rough,
and hide an extra bottle if you need to.
Keep it interesting.
Keep the nervousness in your stomach.
And never get used to it.
The butterflies, friend, they don't come to just anybody.

When Everything Else Fails...

And it felt great then, to be outside Boston
with a pretty lady on my arm.
Giggling about the absurdity of it all,
how useless college and maybe just life seemed.
Oh! Oh! and her hair!
Holding it, smelling it, and LOVING IT
as we kiss on full-beds.

I have spent too much money in the wishing-well
to let it go.
There is love! It is everywhere I look today!
I graduated highschool and never learned a thing
but found what I wanted just beneath my skin.
When everything else fails, just fail with it.
It will all get better.
And we don't have to lock fingers, we can just hold hands.
You can stand by my side and be proud of your friend.

Drink and Conversation.

I'm like my father in the way our silence works
in dealing with the women in our lives.
I'm like him in more ways than this, but
this is the most notable.
I'm not too like my mother, except in looks and stubbornness.
I'm okay with this.

I will say I have it in me.
It is stronger than the Irish Whiskey
that's been running through me since birth.
I have bits & pieces of them and I see it sometimes.
They are fighters though, that's the real difference.
My laziness will kill me.
I've never needed too much more than
a handle of dirty
(or 20 of Busch Light bottles)
((or the 4 liter of Carlos Rossi, 13%))
and a nice person to talk to about it all.
That's really all I've ever wanted to make me happy.

That,
and maybe doing it in a different place every once in awhile.
I guess that's sad.
I don't remember what I liked before that.
I can fumble around on the board
or with the pen
to seem like I have some drive.
But Mom & Dad,
it's really the bottle and conversation I want.
It makes it come out easier.
It makes life easier to take.
On my back, drunk and talking about the clouds with her.

The Wine Of The Road

3 hours at home after a week on the road
and I'm ready to do it all again.
Keeping my bag packed and plan set
Keeping life just distant enough so it can't touch me.
Keeping the irish whiskey in my veins.
Upstate New York good god let's fucking do it.
Move on, over and out.
I am drunk off the wine of the road.
The couches they've been good, yes,
the guest beds and beds shared, yes,
drunk off all of this and still drinking, yes.
The memories are fading,
living isn't TOO too hard
and Avah is here.
I hear her name blow in from the south
on the cold wind as it whips by my ex-lovers house.
Where is she tonight?
Where did it go?
Is life good yet, or did The Aeroplane crash into The Sea?
They don't get it, they never have or will.
The road brings me closer to you
The wine brings you closer to me.
2 bodies fumbling, fighting for a feeling.
"We can get it back!"

You and me, you crazy horse, we're going places.
We're gonna do it all over again.

She's gone.

I would NEVER want to live forever, I explained,
as I would see everyone else die.
my lovers,
my brother and sisters,
my children,
my childrens children.

Watching them grow up and slowly down again and then
all of them, put into the dirt
headstones like flowers.
headstones like we never got out of here.

Everyone else gets out, as my life slows to its stop.
Never thinking I'd end up living and dying in the same place,
it clicks like a camera.
Or the memory of your shoes walking down the hallway toward the door.

It's really gone this time.

Friend, I could jump into the Atlantic and no one would ever hear from me again.
The ground is crumbling beneath us, it already looks as though GOD
may have been clawing at the hillside to reach us, as I think-


I need to get out of here, or we'll end up drunk for another 3 years.
I know you have been crawling in and out of bed with your new lovers
I know that they're probably better than me
in life and looks.
Meanwhile
I can't live or look at you.
It's really gone this time:
the feeling of splendidness
the orange days.
the gigantic stumbling of us towards the beat-up farmhouse.
I hope you find what you're looking for.
I tried.
But I never want to hear from you again.

Be A Man (roses)

I fucked up.
I tried to be a gentleman, paying for your cab back,
maybe holding doors once in awhile
but there's much more to it than that.
It's about BEING a man every once in awhile.
It's about not drinking
not taking drugs.
I'm a coward, I'm such a coward.
I'm hiding from you and from myself and from the only people who care if I live or die.
I'm scaring everyone and I can't stop I can't stop, I can't stop.
I'm sorry but it's the only thing that keeps her away from me.
I've made more than my fair share of mistakes but
I would have never dreamed i could have hurt you making them.
I built this room of bullshit around myself
and it's all caving in at the same time.
I can't stop until it stops hurting
and it won't stop hurting until I stop.

Thank you, Megan!

"Thank you, Megan,
Thank you so much!!!"
Slipping the 6 prescription pills into my trembling hands.

Moments like these are hard to come by.
This sick desperation,
these star-struck eyes.
I know that some make me happy
and some make me just not care.
But it's funny, at this late night hour
it's actually the blue ones
that make me not feel so blue.
93 on top of
833,
thank god for you
playing god for me.

"Religion is the Opiate of the Masses"
This mass of opiates is my own religion.

The Attack

we had it.
we had it then.
it flew oh my god it flew high above us
and tunnelled beneath.
it attacked from both sides.
it kept us awake at least it kept me awake
i saw it come at you, snarling.
i thought it had us cornered and
i decided to throw myself in front, (id never want to see you hurt.)
but when it bit me,
when that MOTHER FUCKER
BIT ME
i bled everything before it
and have bled everything since.


love.

Bullet

it is early
i'm alone.
mom sleeps,
dad sleeps
everyone can get some rest but me.
waiting for a bullet
waiting for a girl
(same thing)
that could stop my heart
slowly
slow
ly
sl
owly
until i can almost feel her in the slow way
that the world spins under me.
hell, she is the world spinning under me.
but at least night and day work the world in regular intervals.
with that in mind,
i lay down and just wait for the bullet.
and i'm sure that she can sleep.

The PhoneBooth

In the phone booth again,
as it fogs
and my rain-slicked hand reaches
for the balls it takes to call you.
It rings.
(Where are you?)
Again.
(Come on.)
Again.
(Please)
Again.
Then nothing.
They say real love goes on forever
but I just don't have it in me anymore.
Now, I wish on anything I can.
I ask to be shot.
I ask for the correct amount of powder.
I ask for a car crash.
Fuck, yes,
even a car crash would be more bearable.
Staring straight down, I open the doors,
cross the street, and let it start again.
If you cried reading this,
I cried louder writing it.
On nights like these,
I'm afraid I'm gonna be alive
a lot longer than I'm dead.

Sick.

It is late June, humid,
and I am absolutely dopesick with love.
I drink whatever will do the job
to get my mind from her.
But good god i can not escape
what my life has become, is becoming
what it became on that night i held
her and said i'm sorry i'm sorry i love you
baby don't go.

It had happened though, between us.
It was there, I could have touched it.
When the morning comes, she is gone
and it is gone
the hangovers still there
and i guess i am too.

A Baby Is Coming

Drunk! Junkbox! Liar! Cheat! Thief!
Of course, he would never break a promise to a child
or even his pregnant sister
but would certainly kill anyone for them.
Big balloon belly about to burst
Baby girl, can not wait to meet you!
Praying she won't know about:
this life.
these sick dreams.
this holocaust.

As the stars blink off,
as the brakelights blink on (then off again!),
it all goes away.
He keeps the others for when things get REALLY bad.
On the top-shelf of his closet,
he opens the shoebox labeled "just in case".

Mornings

it's always worse in the mornings,
after dreaming of the simple things
we used to do.
(but that are always getting taken for granted)
you showed me the nicer side.
you were concrete, you were my shade before this.
big, hairy lumberjacks with ugly $$$
i hear them coming closer and
it hurts like
being up 7 minutes too early for the alarm
set to wake you for work.
it hurts even more like
taking your pictures down

amanda,
i don't doubt that you loved me
but i do doubt that you couldn't have loved
anyone else just the same.

i get trashed by the ocean
by the forest
and tell them about your beauty,
but now your absence.
i scream drunk at the sea,
at the trees.
i make fires
and try to send smoke signals up, up, up to god
or whatever we talked about that feels more comfortable
than the life i'm living now.

Oh my God

While the rest are:
eating, drinking, smoking,
pissing, shitting, fucking, fighting,
running to, running from, working,
calling (or being called),
living (sometimes), dying (always);
Here I am, FALLING in love again.