That beading heat condescending bottle irks me. I’m not normally an angry drunk, but everyone knows that if you live in the city in the summer, violent thoughts udder a strange persona. You ever stand in my shoes and you’ll see. You’ll see a blanket lifted off your world and when you let the light end, watch out. Stumbling on the stutter clues of existence used to fill me with wonder, now I draw a long face of fate.

My world of hangover headaches and blatant complacency long for a moment of youth. A game of wiffle ball, pitched from the curb into a set of the worn flake steps of a three bedroom home. The whistle of the ball and the wisp of the bat. Plastic on wind, god bless us one and all. Youth was good to my stretched skin frame. My fragile existence gave me the careful gene and I never did much. My friends began to use me as a gauge for delinquency, if I refused to do it, they thought twice, then did. Adolescence was a tough gig and any debauchery delved in is pretty much experience until you turn eighteen. What good days.

The story is different when yer thirty one. Burning the piles of leaves on the corner is an embarrassment when overly inebriated, bald and lonely. I’ve been all those things, even at the same time. I’m the sort that doesn’t want to draw attention to myself unless it’s a cute girl. I play opossum until everyone is gone. I sing Pink Floyd and Beatles songs in my head sometimes and I’m sure every word they sing is the album cover I was meant to be on.

I used to worry about where I was going and when I would get there. Now I realize that I’m just here and I can go anywhere.

This space I’m in isn’t so bad. I have Cub beer and heady acreage. My fridge is blossoming with fresh and I don’t own a microwave or toaster. My dog is as contemporary as me but only on account as he is a puddle reflection of who I think I am. We spin through life one another with each other being. That dog has spirit when he chases squirrels, most the rest he’s lazy waiting for later.

Astori is just words you need to get out.

I used to write in notebooks with a medium point pen. I’d have college rule and only black and blue. I was mostly blue because of all the melancholy I’d soaked up over the years. I’d write in bed with a dictionary next to me and ideas sunk all through like sand rippling tide. I want to be any rock you find on the beach. I stuck my pen in the wire spirals.

Love is an uncertain conundrum if you make it. Such aberrations reveal with experience. The awful truth is, that the closer you get to figuring it all out, the more crutches you need to bear. I can’t even spin anymore. I flake even when I’m not wearing a coat.

The lover I have has blond hair and a strong nose. I still love the elegance of Audrey Hepburn. My lover reminds me. She knows my truth and expects it. Her love is like the mud left when a puddle dries up. She believes too.