THE CLOSET MYSTIC

you go out

to forget what’s inside.

you drown your past

in blinding lights.

hearing loss,

damaged livers.

the sickness of the young:

we fall in love

with slow death.

we were only 10

when we met—

long before the siren song 

of downtown’s 

gaping maw

drew you near,

and swallowed you whole.

a DUI

couldn’t pull you

from her belly.

AA meetings,

leaving the event horizon,

breaking free—

but the black hole 

beckons.

the past’s gravity

is too great—

you fall back in,

desperate 

for amnesia.

what the hell is happening?

snapshots

of every night out:

a timelapse 

in my mind’s eye.

years and years

of skin 

losing luster,

of eyes 

drawing in,

of weakening cheeks,

of smiles 

losing their peaks.

groundhog lives:

we rinse and repeat.

trapped 

in the same nightmare,

convinced it’s paradise.

anything

to forget the dead end.

go,

pour one out

for a dead friend—

but refill it

soon after.