not a POEM (for a drunk bastard)

WARNING: The following is NOT a poem

It's an old guitar abandoned and forgotten, leaning it's warped neck against the cement wall of a cellar, caked with dust, strings useless with rust and dried oil

Ir's a video you've watched a hundred times but refuse to download because you're convinced it will give your computer a virus

It's a dust bin for calenders and a trash compactor for clocks

It's a scrapbook stuffed with reminders of things that very likely never happened and a wrinkled, road-weary rock star to convince you they did

It's the rancid odor of dead skunk that remends me of all the weed you burned

It's the goofy laugh some found contagious but I just thought was goofy

It's a running bet to see who could guess exactly how late you would be to an important occassion

It's a hell of a good time if you're looking for hells of good times you won't remember twenty-four hours later

If you don't mind losing the time

I doubt you even consider
That your leaving was such a betrayal
You couldn't consider much of anything with your gut
So full of cheap bourbon whiskey
Your words untethered from your thoughts
Your feelings numbed, just the way you liked it
If you cared the morning after
That was the only time you cared at all
I was robbed of the justice in calling you a liar
It took too much of your energy to stand
You surely had none to divine truth from fiction
Stand and talk
Move and breath
Glad to fool
You seemed cogent, enough to inspire trust

I shouldn't hate you
I despise you and I'm wrong
I loathe you and I know I'm judged
I am jealous of you and I am ashamed of it
I envy you and I can't help but wonder
From where did you get all this power?
What makes all these memories I have of you
Mock, Scorn, Torture me with guilt for all I feel
Even as you walked away you had no idea of what you promised
The ties that bind, you said, the ties that bind
They're hard to break and you were right
I've spent all these years trying to untie that knot
Every time I hit a snag I can't help but think of how tightly you wound them
It makes me despise you even more

I despise you even more because I know
If you were here right now I'd take you for granted
Every bit as much as I did when we shared the same room
Ages ago
Only difference being how acutely aware I'd be with
Well learned 20/20

God, I miss you
I miss the way you made me feel normal
The way you made be believe I belonged
Three sheets to the wind, plastered
Eight miles high and laughing that goofy laugh of yours
Hanging around long enough to pick you up when you fell
What I want to know, when all is said and done
Where were you when I was the one sprawled out on the floor?
Did you never think that I would need you to return the favor someday?

The view from down here is the one I am bound to remember
Looking up to a myriad of faces
Not a friend amongst them
Certainly not a friend like I thought you were
Teetering stinking drunk you could still lift me up and get me the hell out of this place

...and I can't even blame you
...you were a dry leaf blowing in the wind
...kindling for the demands I made of you
...easily crushed