I Wore You Like A Sweater

The day of the Valentinean hordes nears. Candles burn in the corners of a thousand rooms, patchouli oil burning and haze of lust quenching everything looming rooming -- broken hearts and bitter pills. We don't, we don't, we don't. We find ourselves in bars the country wide, coast to coast, fairly madly scanning the horizon for something, anything, nothing. The darkness brings in that kid Tony. He only comes out at night. I'll smoke another cigarette in memory of his map of the world. He figured on something new. He figured on this and he threw away all of that.

You would love me to believe that diet soda is now bad for me. The soda companies are just trying to see if this will increase sales of non-diet soda or not. I still mix my whiskey with it.

Pretzels and trail mix and pringles and pizza and boxes thereupon. All of it gone last gone; you think I don't know you, you think I don't know what I'm writing about any longer.

Evenings in February
when the weather nerves me up
& I think of little besides the past
when the bottles empty themselves
& I bury the dead again (at last)

this radio doesn't catch your wave
I lost your signal doll & I don't
anymore know how to apologize
and plus nobody wants to try too hard

I stand hunched over the dresser
wishing you were alive again
to forgive me (again)

we broke down every one of their lies
we knew these moments were precious
we metastasized everything in sepia

they forbade you from me
we forbade it all with lit cigarettes
& flash in the pan madness

I still think that lipstick wasn't your shade
I still wish you had worn the aqua green

let's not pretend for even a second
that I'll ever have that house in the country
or that I'll ever be a sculptor long enough
to build a statue in your memory

I know you didn't mean it
I know you didn't mean it
I know you didn't mean it
I know you didn't mean it

I tried to drown myself several months later
& lied about it when they found me
my grandmother gave me some pain medication
"to try and get back the feeling"