The ash on my cigarette has gotten too long
Like a worm barely held together
stabbed full of dry gray holes.
A sad boy crying in his bed.

Everything smells like phosphorus
and alcohol and killed tobacco.
I am more sober than I should be.
It's a few hours since I made a fading girl cry.

My words and voice were laced with hot tar
hotter blood. Haven't growled like that in months.
I was in the right, some people said
whatever that means.

The computers hum with
Appalachian melodies. A single light's
in the kitchen, along with
the haze of suicidal lungs.

The girl ran off
and the tears staining sheets
belong to a kid who feels
like he's standing on gallows.

I remember my father talking
about self-sufficiency to cope
Something I couldn't learn,
So I always take the wounds
My friends deserve.

The red-light lamp makes me feel
like I'm etching out Bukowskian prose.
Like I should drink a mound of bullets
until my stomach lining sloughs and
these slit-eyes actually feel wet for once.

In the end,
I am always dancing around heavy eyelids.
Looking for something that will
turn these streets crystal.
That'll build glass buildings
where brick walls rest like graves.