Better

1

Melodies are running
as splendid as they can
as I stare into her eyes
tonight.
The restaurant is crowded,
and I am not with her,
but something is holding
my feet in place.
It is not the corn beef.

It has been six years
since I had seen her face,
smelled her lilac scent,
or tasted her skin -
soft flesh against lips
that begged to be licked.

She manages a shy smile;
I manage one, too,
but they both feel weak
against the roar of the crowd
all waiting for their calories.

I can tell she is waiting
for me to tell her
all the desperate things
I know I kept bottled up inside
for six long, damning years.

But instead, I answer
the call of the hostess;
and, nodding my head,
I quickly step away.
I know all this will fade, as well:
like a picture does
on a foggy, steamy mirror.

I settle for her memories.

And I live with the notion
that I could have done
so, so much better.

2

Wandering the streets of New Hampshire
I am blissfully unaware of how I arrived here,
only knowing that I followed
the title of a Robert Frost poem.
But the bricks are crumbling
off the moss-covered buildings.
Even the morgues in Connecticut
are constructed with more love.

A tap on my arm.

Fifty bucks placed in the palm
of some shaking, spitting zombie
who offers me the world
in the form of one needle.

Damn, this stuff is weak.
I could have gotten
the real, good medicine
in my own hometown.

Yet I settle for the sleazy
after-effects that follow
the initial bleeding
as the needle point pokes
my skin.

And I sleep, that night,
under the stars,
dreaming of my parents telling me
I could have done
so, so much better.

3

Drunk in a phone booth again,
I find myself looking for God
in the sweat and urine-filled
public white pages.
He is not there.
So I settle for Heavenly Donuts.

4

The flashing red and blues
finally find my unconscious body.
In a spinning, murky haze.
I am brought to some hospital
named after a patron saint
I have no energy of memorizing.
I thought I was living life well,
until I land myself into a world
of crutches and canes and wheelchairs.

The hospital smells of death,
and sin,
or maybe it is just me.

But I have time.
Time to reflect on a life
some say is not worth living
after all.

Yet in my own, personal level,
I am happy in this hell:
I am able
to steal a couple Vicodin
out of the doctor's medicine cabinets
every now and then.

And life
doesn't get much better
than this.


~J.V.Harker~
~19 March 2009~