poem of the day 09.18.14

the good times are killing me

we wait for seth to say

time for vodka shots?

as if that’s the question of the hour

three beers deep

a bottle or so of wine at home to be consumed

forty years old and for some reason

i keep hanging on to all of this

when i want so hard to stop and let go

the good times are killing me

and seth and you and everyone who’s always in here

the stomach burns and the sides hurt

only what the doctors don’t know won’t hurt ‘em

cheers, seth says

he’s not trying to be ironic but…

we take the shots down and he says,

man, all i want is my girl back

even though she cracked his face a few times

and left him knee deep in family misery

but abandonment makes the heart grow fonder

or so i’ve been told

and when seth picks up our pints

for round four on the house

there’s no point in stopping him

because we know where the real joy comes from

so i slouch off the stool

to put two more greenbacks in the juke

hear seth talking to you

the same sad story over and over again

his redundancy as brilliant as ours

the american dream in full bloom here

this lonely afternoon.