Defeated pavement
I am
Can’t tell if I’m stomping on hot oil asphalt or
if someone is stomping on me
I think it’s both
Down on myself for loving too many
impressed with my capability to
accept more people into an already full life
more reasons to seek and
wonder what I’m missing
He’s a card carrying communist!
But he’s stable, and listens to metal!
He’s got a Bob Dylan inflection and
what about my love for women?
But alas, black loafers pull at me while
deluded horses talk about heroin addiction over
cups of hot tea and chattering teeth
“Shut the door,” he says
calls me sweetie when we say goodbye
trades clothing, rifling through my closet
on a Tuesday morning
picks out grandpa’s gray shirt and
covers it in pieces of the roof
“God, this is such a good view,” he says
over glasses of vermouth and
“I’m a reluctant fuck,”
laughing over unsuccessful sex and
trips to my broken bed
it’s a comedic bit of fitful moments
every few months
“You can’t stay over,” I say, “You’re an insomniac,” but
“You’re baring the intricacies of me on the internet,” he says back
Well, I’m a self-pitying Brautigan wanna-be
or was that you?
slipping into Specs on a Monday afternoon after one Peroni
before getting on the Muni and
I try desperately not to drink the Fernet that you showed me and
even more so
not to think of you
Fast walking
held me after my fast-walking friend died
she was the only one that
walked as fast as me but
he
walks
faster
Moves fast through life in general
burning through Parliament cigarettes and
San Pellegrino sparkles
coughs in dirty streets that
belch out human beings and
we discuss it over coffee
the state of things
during breaks from our own solitary thinking
And still the pavement holds the impression of
new black boots and 300 dollar loafers
and still
Defeated, I am
hunched over ocean air
singing me to sleep when
Oak Street is too loud
“the damned men on motorcycles burning their hot oil on
hot oil asphalt,”
spits my intellect as
I dream of owning a motorcycle in my
gas-heated home, making pasta on my gas stove
Impressions of journalistic endeavors and
poetic ones too
wondering why the hills climb as they do and if
they’ll ever bring us together
Could the horse predict our future?
Or maybe the Ishmael ape?
Does the pavement forgive?
Could you give me a kiss before I go or
before you go into your other lovers and
me into mine and
will it ever be time for us?
Unless it already was, or is
this perfect friendship
the impression was already set in stone by
the stars that supposedly predict
according to old women
in thick rimmed glasses and frizzy hair
maybe the North Beach palm reader behind
the neon sign could tell
watching us run up hills with loose laces and
falling apart loafers
He stopped drinking
so he can afford new ones now