Nicole
I agreed with you
when you damned me
“the mopiest boy of them all”
in your book
”the Bitch You Love to Hate”

But no
I still don’t “get it”
this sensitivity / this boredom
”it” still rains outside the window
of my sorrow
and summers don’t seem hot enough
to feel the burning muse
shaping the awkward flow
around these hands

and yes
“it” just might be the liquor
that churns up toxic nonsense to
collide with this cross-eyed vision
of a life mislead
that seems appropriate

or “it” could be
the love-sick poems
scribed onto porcelain dreams
that shatter into shards
of jagged truth
cutting deep
into the poems
I keep bleeding
until convinced
I am still alive