I will drink and drink
until
I am drunk with life
I said I would – when?
was it 10,000 years ago
when I spent my days
in mud and muck waiting
for a lung to breath
the scent of your hair
across pillows,
green as spring lawns
manicured to hide
the dangers of love?
I said I would smoke
blue and billowing,
large as a lifetime
of dreams.
and I will if it kills me
because I can’t find
another way to find another way.
All I have are the keys
to this house, where I am,
locked away under receding lines
that once made frail an identity
cut at the roots by chrome scissors,
never given back to me.
I’ve left myself on decks of cedar
in locks and strands to be devoured
by my mother as she composts
my life bit by bit.
I said I would scream
at hilltops where children sleep
to keep the rooms steady,
to keep the bed from rocking
with the AM fights
from too much
smoking and drinking
over the course of lifetimes, like rivers,
meandering where they please,
no thought to the flooding and damage
they might wreak on me,
twice in one week,
twice in one lifetime,
it’s still too much for a boy.
screaming at low volumes
