Thanks Bukowski

I was shivering in a heated room-
- the best stories are a cliché from the start.

But before I begin I really must thank Bukowski

for unblocking me. Dead.

If he were here, he’d look up from the other side of the couch,
his hair shiny with sweat and oil,
cigarette burning down and drink freshly chilled,

‘You should’ve seen me in the 70’s, I unblocked a new pussy
every hour.’

I’d be uncomfortable but still smile.

No one (not even Bukowski) should say ‘pussy’ at ten AM on a Tuesday.

I’d tell him, ‘Well I always remember to pull you out during the hardest times.’

He would’ve been King of “That’s What She Said’.

I hadn’t written in weeks.

But I was drinking and smoking more.

And to him that’s all that a great writer needed to do in order to succeed.
The secret to his success was excess and fragment sentences.

Emily Dickinson had loneliness down to a science;
Sylvia Plath owned and operated hyphens.

‘Fall in love soon,’ he’d remind me. ‘The sooner the better so you can learn to loathe it.’

I added to my To-Do list.

If he were here, I’d shove him with my foot and light his cigarette.

“I’m here, thinking about my future…you should listen.
I could end up at a crossroads at the end of all this.”

His glazed green eyes would roll over at me.

“Babe, you need to pay closer attention,
no one ever said life starts and ends on a straight line.”

purple sleet

The dark is too bright the light too harsh from shadows
Dope sick empathy burns a fist sized hole in my lower intestines
Its like a bullet wound the size of a cannon ball
Mental health is a recreational habit
Let me linger, let my shell stay firm, let me stay and feel this
animal bouncing and shrieking on my ovaries
and cutting slits, reflectively, in my stomach like a paper snowflake.