She danced
a lovestruck dance
across the motel room,
chugging my whiskey,
covered only by
the tattered rags of darkness
and the lupine moon.
At that moment,
I would have killed
for a sunny day,
but we all know
that the best moments
rarely happen
on a sunny day.
I pulled her close,
my mouth to her lips,
my mouth to her hips,
and finally,
she put the bottle down,
two birds,
one stone.
Lustful eyes
take what they see,
Love is blind,
and can’t see me.
Love is blind,
they always say,
a blind that comes,
then goes away.
Lust is fleeting,
Love is strong,
Love hurts more,
and lasts too long.
Love is blind,
but takes a while,
Lust is better,
by a mile.
I met her at a bar,
because she thought
I was someone she knew,
a case of mistaken identity.
She apologized,
and struck up a conversation,
likely her intent, all along.
We went out on the deck,
and I lit a cigar.
She danced to Coltrane,
and the moonlight
kissed her everywhere
that the smoke did not.
Damn my luck,
that all the good ones
are spoken for.
Do not love me,
lonely woman.
I will not hold you,
and whisper kisses
into your ear.
I will not
be there for you,
in your time of need.
Lonely woman, I am not the man for you.
I will fuck you hard,
just the way
you like it,
and I will leave town
before the sun rises.
This,
you can love.
Bellied up again,
drinking the cheap shit,
eying the pickled eggs,
and Henry
(last name, not first)
pipes up,
rambling on
of death again.
He asked me how
I was gonna die,
I said, “Hopefully,
either fucking,
or sleeping.”
“You’re full of shit!
You’re not
gonna slip away
in your sleep.
You’ll die wide awake,
stinking of piss and shit,
clutching at your chest,
and gasping for air!”
“So, fucking, it is!”,
I said,
and went back
to my beer.
Hard drunk in Sam’s Town,
laughing at Hard Luck Harry,
losing my shit
over the stories
of lost fortunes
and women
that would be his,
were it not for their marital vows.
I throw the man a bone,
pony up another hundred,
to top off
the seven fronted,
and call in a hooker
to entertain,
to maybe put a smile
on the small man’s face.
He wanted an Asian,
petite,
young,
and I promised as such,
and was promised in kind,
by the voice
on the other side
of the telephone.
At breakfast the next day,
he regaled me
with the tale
of the fat Mexican girl
that showed instead,
and his recollection
of the lesser half
of a sad handjob.
From his perspective,
I’d be angry;
From mine,
a hundred dollars,
well spent.
To her, I seemed intuitive,
like I was wiser
than the others,
that I saw deep
into her soul.
We had just met,
and it was as if
I had known her
throughout
her entire life.
She drove away in her Mercury,
the one with the leopard-print seats,
and she would never figure out
how I knew
she was a dancer.
We were drinking hard,
as she had said
she could drink me
under the table.
I slapped her with a glove,
and the duel was on.
“Don’t expect me
to shed a single tear
when they find you
dead on the floor,
strangled by your own vomit!”,
she said.
“I’d piss on your grave,
but I have groceries in my trunk!”,
I shouted back,
downing another shot.
The contest ended
in a time limit draw.
They say a draw
is like kissing your sister,
but upon further review,
I’m pretty sure it was more like
fucking an ashtray.
It’s six,
and we sit in the diner,
hung over,
sore from too much booze
and chafed in all the right places.
She doesn’t eat as fast as I,
and keeps pushing her eggs around the plate,
as if the mere acknowledgement of the food
were sustenance enough.
There are no more smoking sections,
but a grey haze from the days
of White Owls and Lucky Strikes
shellacs over the bad paintings of still-life fruit
that decorate the walls.
She laughs at something I forget,
and this act alone exudes a beautiful energy,
and for a small moment,
I see perfection,
and to think
it was wasted on me.
Her name was Jessica, I think.
She was a teenage carny
with freckles on pale-white skin
and a shock of red hair
like a sunset after a thunderstorm.
She was working the Pop-A-Shot basketball game,
and took all my money,
as I tried in vain
to put an under-inflated ball
into an under-sized hoop.
This theme would repeat itself
throughout the evening,
in the bed of an El Camino,
and inside her trailer.
distill life 