You sit holding your Absinthe, your Washington red, your perfect Carajillo

you sit lusting Chartreuse through lines of Poppy Z. Brite

thinking of wearing torn fish-net and that big grin on your fat vermillion lips

a hundred years ago

when you drank to be happy, to quiet, to lull

the ghosts who tiptoe in your mind when it’s silent

a house of rock, any music, noise, turn it up

drown out the echo please, make it stop

for that tinkering with my genes, you know the one

where you take away dopamine and leave me shaking

and hide serotonin where my bones dissolve

deprive me of my melatonin until morning burns

the edges like a long inhalation

where birds and stray dogs ruin the last five minutes

of a dream in which I’m not drowning

give me peace, lend me a vein to plunge

that elixir of not giving a damn

micro-dose me out of this sorrow

turn off the ever ready burn

we’re cooked, we’re done, oh god we’re done

silence is an enemy to the long distance runner

we need to keep moving

even as our bodies fail we cannot stop

then I’ll hear her approbation

locking me in the closet, pinching me raw

then i’ll believe it when he said I was ugly

like the cruelty of people who make indifference

a lively sport

yes it’s true I say to the most beautiful woman at the bar

I’m a dry drinker

swirling my tonic water and lime

if I could, I would consume every pretty little bottle

on that shelf and then start on you

but I’ve survived by tying the ends together

so you can’t tell I’m unraveling

or how the light caught flame

but each day I make my curtsey at the end

I’m aware of how tenuous the balance

of wanting to drop-out and needing sanity’s solace

just like you when you lean over and click your tongue

like you’re cross with me

except it’s more of a

come hither

that’s the allure of the dry drinker

we watch you swig it back

like others view porn and eat nachos and cheese

wishing our ruined will power restored

and hungering souls full

could give in to the temptation to

cavort with oblivion

in the arms of a green eyed goddess

who licks the salt from my arm

and whispers prophecy

no.. not in this life she curls her tongue

in this life you will always be watching from

the outside in