finally, at some point you're sitting in a room
with a bolstered, crass old man and he says to you,
"you're so fucking lost, it's a joke,
you'll never escape and if you're not careful,
you'll let them eat you.
they will continue to laugh at your stink
if don't start sneering more at them, or join them.
there are pictures of gods dancing on your fucking walls,
and you can't dance. there are stone rubbings in your bathroom
but they, fool, are not stone rubbings
because, as they'll tell you, that became illegal before you were born.
there are pictures of people on your walls that you consider to be key fragments
of your tired and nearly broken-down soul, and they don't even like you.
look -
here is a picture of your young-skinned, yellow-toothed mom,
here is a picture of your drunkenness,
here is a picture of the cigarettes,
here is a picture of your poorness,
here is a picture of your slobishness,
here is a picture of a man living gleefully between four very weak walls.
here is a scar from when you ran into a cement wall.
that's the only thing that isn't real. the only thing unsmellable.
here is a picture of the lust that didn't help,
and there is a picture of the love that will not save."
or maybe he'll say, after spitting out his whiskey on the ground,
"fuck, kid. there was a second there I thought I liked you."
