19 November 2008

erin reardon

junky love

Daisies in a gun belt
Taking tickets to your sallow, sallow skin show
Chump change
The rot
Drenched in bourbon spirit
You didn't show your age then
Somehow you seemed so much older

When that stardust dissolved from your eye line
I kept a hand stuffed in my pocket
The left hand
Trigger finger cocked and ready
We had a junkie love affair
Dependency on abuse
My heart was pining for your hatred
Mercy, mercy killing
Bird in a cage
I could have kept you all those nights ago
In a stupor or a rage

It was hard enough
Just to keep my head from bleeding over your fencepost
My pyramid
Chemically-scented
Your tomb
Arms across your chest
A runny nose
Nightshade and moon orchids
Glow a sick, sweet blue

My cotton fix
Snaggletooth
I needed you
Bury my burning eyes
In your chest hair
Clueless now
How to shot a junkie love affair

Cold needles in the ashtrays
Vomit
Cigarette burns across the cover of your paperback
Did I want too much
When I swallowed everything
That was in our medicine chest?

My ears were ringing
Blind with frustration
My junky heart
Your skin was so dry
I tried to anoint you
With unholy oils

Street-slick
You slip away from view
Rose-tinted across a Utah sun
I stick out my thumb
The left hand still in my pocket
Trigger-sure against my stomach
Slow bleeding
Across your linoleum
Bleeding your medical caress from memory

Did I ask too much?
When I asked you to
Shoot
Me
Up?

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