By Tanqueray Cowboy
Date: 30 January 2000

A Conversation with an Unseen Self

Do you feel it?
That warm lead weight
in your gut
like a shot of
bourbon whiskey
of no particular age?

And your knees?
Are they weak?
How can something she did
to your heart
affect your KNEES,
for christsake?

You’d like to cry,
of course
but it’s not allowed
so
you turn up
the radio...

that’s it, just a little more...

It’s not country anymore
but angry
heavy metal.
Wicked, like you,
like her,
like god,
like the world.

That glass in your hand, friend?
Beer or tequila this round? 
Is it hard to get it past that stone
in your throat?

It’s O-K, though...
the bitterness soothes
the dark thing stretching it’s
tendons and 
flexing it’s
claws
in the dark.

So go ahead,
light another cigarette,
(like it matters when or how you die.)
Your thoughts curl upwards
with the smoke
and drift into
nothingness
and with them,

your soul.