Move your hand like sugar through the
traffic lights. Too many people are crowded under
this overhead and too much smoke is flying up into
the atmosphere. We're lighting each star on fire,
combusting galaxies and the universe while we speak of
Freud, Fidel and Bowie. Every now and then there is a pause
while we collectively sigh.
There is lightning flickering in the reflections
of the store shop windows,
and even the gas station is falling down
under the girth of moving bodies. I'm new here and
slightly out of place - a
figure leaning in a languid pose against
a telephone pole watching the others move around
and through me like foreigners.
They are spinning and twisting in an open mouthed, slack
jawed drunken stupor. But they laugh so hard I can
almost forget tomorrow.
All of us wander, en masse, to an alien
apartment three blocks southwest.
A quiet voice buzzes us up and busses us up
three flights of parquet floor and faceless brown
doorways. My feet scuff and I drag them
in a slow drawl towards the destination.
Inside we sprawl in arms and limbs,
warm bodies over couches and doormats, over dining
room tables with matching chairs and seat cushions.
Smoking becomes habitual, shot glasses are topped
up and replenished. There are always more drugs
wrapped in tinfoil to parlay into collective
unconsciousness. We all nod to agree once we
have sufficiently numbed ourselves.
We will all move as one form, softly
breathing loudly exhaling, always stretching
our fingers out in hopes of brushing another's.
We are so disconnected that feeling connected is
assumed wrong. Every wide open eyed smile - an
attempt on our lives.
We are the aging youth. The drugstore deluded.
We were the first to open pill bottles into our mouths,
the first to move like moths in
a flurry of wings and misdirection.
Even this room isn't small enough to make us feel
close.
Published in Out/Words #1 (view contents)