Pain Killers

Dallas was never more at home

Than when in the middle of a mosh pit

Arms and legs flailing

In the eye of a human tornado.

'

After my first breakup

Dallas flew to my house at an ungodly speed

Threw me into his mom's minivan

And we drove 400 miles

Went to a strip club in Kentucky

And then immediately drove back.

'

But Dallas was my favorite poet

'

Ask for 30 lines

He'd give 30

beautiful

fat

little

coke

lines

spread out in geometrical perfection on a pristine mirror

The first one smelled like your grandfather's armchair

The next one like your favorite lover's cunt

The next like Opening Day at Fenway Park

The last one like a mortuary

And they'd jump off the slab

And up through your nose

exploding your brain.

While your left only

To look at your reflection in the mirror

And you've never seen yourself so pretty.

'

You'd ask for 30 lines

He'd give you 30 haymakers in rapid succession

The next one landing

Always

Before you've even partially registered the last

Distributed evenly

Among the sacred cows

and God

our enemies, friends, friends' enemies

Me, you, he, she, him

Pregnant bellies,

the moon

'

You'd ask for 30 lines

He'd hand back pure poetic perfection

Tight rope walking the line between chaos and order

And finding divinity there

Plucking your salvation from the anarchywar of existence

Or mundanity

Or death.

'

I suppose

I was looking for something similar

When I picked up the note on his desk

Three paces from a pool of vomit

'

Give me 30 lines

Give me a tome

The New-est Testament

War and Peace: Part II

Give me anything but the three or four

You left me to analyze

For the rest of my life

'

It’s not your fault.

I love you all.

Too much pain

I'm sorry.

'

Pain killers

30 of them

And a bottle of plastic jug vodka

'

You were in so much pain

I know

But it made you great

Stay with it

Sit there and

Open your wrists

Bleeding ink onto the page.

Alchemize art from pain

Poetry

You did it better than any of us

'

Pain killers.

I saw this coming, you know?

Your affair with the heroine

To forsake your muse.

When she left you,

Did you think you could not win her back?

Or did you not want to?

'

Pain killers.

I remember when you called yourself a fraud

"Great artists steal."

"So if I'm great"

"It's only because I am a great thief."

You stole that from Picasso

And I've stolen far more from you

And Proust, Frankl, Doestoevsky

And learned

Suffer is salvation

Life is pain

And pain is life

And all great men must suffer more.

Pain Killers

(I'm screaming this now.)

'

To Dallas,

You once were great

And I love you

And I hate you

And now,

I suffer too

But

(Here’s where we differ)

I thank you for that.

Ready to

Pick up your cross

Of pain

And wear it

Like weightless wings

'

Dallas,

Baby,

Did you know that I could fly?

'

---

'

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Edit: I know it's a longer poem, so feel free to leave any comment. One word or one sentence responses are fine.