gaudy curves that seemed filled
with sugar
perfect like the rolling hills
of tennessee, only pleasantly
excessive

lawless dark brown hair
matching her face
with metal pertruding
through her lower-left lip

she was lost, her figure
filling out a mold made
from fantasties grown stale
and muddied by years
of dissilusionment
and cold

and in the middle of
directing her to muskegon,
after my eyes had travelled the
breadth of her voluptious
body, i told her about it
i told her about her beauty,
i said “you’re gorgeous…
by the way”

and she paused
smiling
with one foot out the door
and didn’t say thanks

she left me for muskegon
with something hidden
inside of a smile and
a pause
perfect like a picture

i cant feel my toes when
i numb them from the run from my
fears which i hope i can escape in
this here present reality. the naturally
deposited ground would feel gritty
if my feet were any more capable
of feeling but instead the sandpaper
texture turns silk and the catharsis
from the pain i attempt to induce
becomes something much more like
a back rub or lullaby slowly rocking me
to sleep.

the autmn decent
chills my chemical roots
and i’m
falling through the smoke
shedding weight to
diminish the rate

this is it
it reminds me of you
take another drag
close eyes

hide

It all worked out so perfectly
with the storm lifting
the fever breaking
the cough enduring
the drizzle coming now-and-then
with just enough body aches
and mud-puddles to know
that what had happened
had happened, and
we can’t change the past
but we can better the future.
Except when it comes to
bad weather and
flu viruses.