Apartment 440 - Falling Off the Wagon

Sobriety is shit.

72 hours in
and I'm giving

serious thought to

drinking the Listerine.

The bitch of it is it's citrus flavored.

I can't even rinse with that toxic concoction, let alone swallow it;
but I'm running out of options.

I finished off my other MacGyver drinks-
the Nyquil was the first to go,
followed quickly by my daughter's Dimetapp

   (which was the cherry kind,

      not the refreshing grape-flavored one)
and a damn bottle of Wal-fed
that gave me a wicked bout of indigestion.

My kingdom for a belt of whiskey.
Maybe a snifter of rum...

Anything would do because
I've broken out in cold sweats,
with the wind-up toy chattering teeth
and shakes severe enough that I can't hold my dick to piss...

You know you're bottoming out
when you wax nostalgic
for the drunken days
when soiling yourself was justifiable
due to your general state of disarray.

That sells it, I'm pissing in the shower.
It's all fair game in there.

I'm the shit that adheres to the bottom of the barrel...
pissing in the shower with my shoes on,
my pants removed as a cautionary measure.

Not that my life can get worse;

nothing trumps waking up miserable,
  sore,
    jobless,
      alone,
        queasy,
          woozy and
            drooling uncontrollably...

besides lacking booze to blame it on.

Apartment 179 – Emergency Exit

We had a love affair with fire.
You helped me burn down all my bridges
and with the rubble you built yourself a way out.

Up in flames. Now that’s the way love goes.

Apartment 159 - Sleeping with Past Perfection

Years ago the nightmares were so commonplace

they never waited for me to close my eyes;

it was always the dreams of

being happy that kept me up at night.

I grew up living in the subjunctive -

right on the corner of ‘Maybe If’ and ‘I Hope’ -

so I’ve always been aware that the future

belongs to those who live in the suburbs.

It’s been two years now,

since I woke up next you…

since I opened my eyes inside a dream.

I dreamed of a heart etched in concrete.

Trapped inside I was the A in P+A

but I became jealous because I was not the P instead.

And as always I stood inert, as if handcuffed

in between hating myself and loving the

dreams of myself, wanting to be first but

settling for anything I can get.

Dreams have a way of reminding and

creating something self-aware – a wound that

laughs at itself? – a dividing line,

separating what

was and what could have been.

Nothing more

than a single brush stroke

on my blank flesh. A reminder, definitely,

but also an opening

for blackness to seep from.

You kicked me out and I

left my heart on the doorstep – a

contemporary Trojan horse,

this time doomed to fail.

Apartment 315 - The Soundtrack to A Snap-Shot

I'm scared to death of silence.

These days

I'm speaking just to keep the thoughts at bay,

the way you clap at flocks of birds to drive them skyward.

I turn on the television and beg for a newscast.

I scan the channels praying for a televangelist.

I tune in to talk radio.
Anymore, I'm a fiend for infomercials.

I miss your clamor:

your constant hum-

the comforting white noise

acting as the metronome

to my insignificant routine.

When the silence started,

I couldn't keep my thoughts straight.

I listened to the faucet drip.

I noticed the refrigerator compressor kicking on and off.

I heard the parties across the courtyard.

I caught the faint reverberations of some 

           God-damned dog barking...

                                             Barking...

                                                   Barking.

There are so many sounds contained in silence-

it's suffocating.

Silence is a cornucopia of sound.

Is that the word?

The pilgrim bullhorn?
I struggled with that one all through grade school.
I guess that's not exactly what I'm trying to convey...

The silence is cacophonous.

That's a little better...
But what does that even mean?

I just can't make sense of anything.

I need your babble to anchor my thoughts.

Everything congeals when you're ignoring something.

These sounds are like schoolyard bullies I can't evade...

they push me this way and that,

depriving me of quiet.

Taking all my sanctuary.

I can't even seem to sleep
if I can't hear you breathing.
The steady rhythm of the air escaping your chest...
the slight whistle of some accumulation in your nasal passage.
All these creature comforts I crave
and can't sate without you.

It's like not knowing your leg is broken
until someone steals your crutch.
I didn't realize how necessary you were
until my world went quiet

and the chaos sought me out...

Apartment 420 - The Funk in Dysfunction

I danced with the ghost of romances' past last night... 

greedy fingers prying open wounds nearly healed;

but not quite. 

There's something particularly masochistic 
     in being romantically bulimic. 

You engorge yourself with love- 

filling to capacity, 

but expelling it emphatically

before it can sustain you. 

You're an emotional accordion. 

It's not as though you're suffering needlessly, though. 
There's a wealth of people profiting from misery. 
     Just turn on the radio from time to time...

   Pop songs are plagues set to melodies. 

     Honestly, though,

what good can come from the gluttony of love? 

It simply isn't enough to find joy anymore- 

          No stories begin at "happily ever after."

That line's a better closer

     than a fucking coffin nail. 

So I scrape off some skin, 
and call the last girl I slept with. 
     For the first time since that night. 
         After nearly a year has passed. 

I throw a text message at the suicidal chick 
that sent nude photographs of herself to my cellphone. 

I even send a note 
to the woman who gave me the worst head EVER.
You know...
     the one who's responsible for the scars???
Who basically lapped at my foreskin for forty minutes
and occasionally made actual contact with the head, 
           causing spasmodic contortions 
that thrust my dick directly into her gag mechanism. 

I figure round two ought to garner me a Grammy nomination. 

That's how you get ahead in this life: 
     you suffer so many setbacks 
that with even a mediocre depiction of events
     you're given fame for a consolation. 
The door prize at the rehab clinic 

          is 2 million copies sold on your next album. 
5 million copies of your bestseller fly off shelves 

      once it hits paperback. 
                     Easily. 

The way I see it, 
I'm one bad relationship away 

     from writing that ever-elusive hit single.
A few tear-tinged evenings away from a world tour 
     and a nickel-a-day coke habit. 

I've just got to find someone to put me into my misery...