Smoke filled the air
and also my lungs.
I exhaled my newport
and added to the atmosphere.
You were on stage.
I was on stage.
You were performing.
I was watching.
The girls were watching you.
The girls were watching me
watching you.
They were speechless.
I didn’t have the heart to tell them
that we weren’t dating,
the poor things,
who’s hopes were smashed.
You stepped off the stage.
You bummed a smoke
from my nearly empty pack.
You are a lanky boy of twenty-one.
I am a voluptous beauty of eighteen.
You are only an inch taller
and yet, how perfectly we seemed to fit
in the eyes of the girls watching us, although
we were not together.
I remember what you said to me
when all I saw from your eyes
was a dazed confusion
which was full of something
that I can’t place my finger on
to this day.
I remember what you said to me.
You said, ‘I am so drunk!
Life is great! ‘
You were right.
You were right with both those statements.
I said I wasn’t drunk.
I was lying.
You were drunk on beer and whiskey.
I was drunk on life and the atmosphere
and your eyes were
full of something
that to this day
I can’t put my finger on.
‘I am so drunk! Life is great! ‘
You are right.
but as we sat
on the top of the red, plastic organ,
all I could think of were your words,
‘I am so drunk! Life is great! ‘
Later in the car
you sat on my lap
you would play with my hair
too drunk to realize
you had given yourself away
in a single touch.
We would get home at 6 am.
We would talk until 7.
We would think of the other
until we slept
and then we would dream.
We would dream.
‘I am so drunk! Life is great! ‘
Life is great.
Life is great.
Leave a Reply