Mythology fills in the cracks in the drywall of science.
I remember conversations such as these-- stoned, caffeinated, grateful.
I am left eavesdropping on a dialogue I've had before... that which isn't mine to hear, and I bounty hunt my bygone eloquence.
I brought the winter with me in a technicolor stash box when I ran
away from home to erase the slates. I closed my legs to the
population, their Dutch-induced accents, infectious prophylactics and
undesired highs, but sometimes I still wake up wondering who was in my
mouth last night, and I can taste the whiskey and the salty latex
slide, the indicative friction, the tousled hair and olfactory field
trips on lusty school buses. Then I remember.
The philosophers disintegrate, and I'm left recreating New York City
in the heartland where the storms roll hourly in. I still avoid the
prepositional phrases of Times Square and the insubordinate clauses of
falafel men, craving drunken jabberwocky, stale and awake at 3 am. I
tattoo the Village across my eyelids as it slips and drips down
misplaced inner thighs quivering on unfamiliar bathroom floors...
liplick for a trace of the juices of lush apartments and donated
smoke. Body image shatters like a mirror plunging from the Windows on the World. I sparkle as it bounces from scaffolding to
windowsill to glittering nighttime sidewalks, crunching beneath boots
and big-ticket stilettos, unnoticed like the rumble of the trains.
I laugh at a different ignorance over the 10 am Sunday morning walks of
shame past the Shake 'n Bake families. They hide their daughters'
eyes from the leather and lace awaiting, plaster casting the
future's perfect wives. The science of this sobriety sends
ink-smudged chills up my spine.
I light another cigarette. It's a southern Monday, and I am writing the new mythology.