I feel so low that the ground may as well be a skyscraper.
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I’m standing at it’s base, looking up at the groundscraper.
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At times like this, every word takes life-energy 2 produce & shoot up that groundscraper
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Nothing left 2 give, crawling outta graves I was the one 2 digg.
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It seems winters are soul-less, & this addiction got me fumbling for soulace.
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I mean air, I need air, but soul and space and air are synonyms for the empty.
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Too much wasted language, here. Wasted breath I can’t afford to lose.
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A diaphragm unfolding, think of this as that. This soul-space.
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The horse, beat the horse over the head, then get back on it.
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My boy never beat that Horse with a capital H, and it took his life.
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San Jose, some crusty apartment, 10 years ago: I wanted coke, but this dude offered H.
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He had a shady look to him, but so do all people addicted to H.
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Everytime I’ve thought of trying it, people who were already hooked warned me.
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You don’t want this problem, Sir. Stay on Coke & Meth & Pill. Don’t fuck with H.
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At that poetry slam, saw that award winning poet slink off into the dark drizzle streets.
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Seattle, Belltown, 2009. Smoked a cig with him, and a blunt. Asked how I could.
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Be more like him. Become a famous poet & get free shots of liquor in my tour rider.
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He said One: don’t get into poetry. This ain’t for you. Stick to hard drugs.
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Ok, that’s fine, I’m into hard drugs, too. Let’s go do some. & talk poetry.
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He said LOOK. Nothing I can tell you will make you like me. Besides, Stay Away.
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From Heroin & Poetry Slams. They will take your soul. Your space. Your air.
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But I want to be a touring poet, famous only inside poetry circles, anonymous otherwise
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Stay away from H, he said. Heroin is a gateway drug to poetry slams.
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But I love coffee shops and hate coffee, I said.
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So listen to the beat and take a ride, Training Day, he said.
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Pelican Bay?
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Stay away from MIA.
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The rapper, the city, or the drug?
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All the above.
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And with that, I watched his back get smaller until it became a shadowy figure tracing steps he’d retraced in every city he’d ever been.
Head downtown, head to where the junkies hang like streetlights atop garbage dumpsters. Hang his head low and wait for his turn to get that H from an inpatient dealer.
Next thing he knows, it’s 3 in the morning and he’s stumbling past the Paramount Theater. Kobain performed here 0nce.
He overhears another Custo waiting by the H Man. Come on, man, hurry it up — my kids are in the station wagon waiting for me. My wife left me. The courts don’t know about my habit. I hope nothing happens to them.
The dealer looked at him and said you need to get your life together, as he handed him the 20 bag of brown powder. That’s the game, right? That’s poetry.
Unknown P
