a great man once said he would feel trapped in this world if he didn’t know he could commit suicide at any moment

there is always one last exit on the highway if you feel the need to slam the emergency brake and kick up some black smoke as the tires skid

hold your drink up loosely

let the liquid act as a gyroscope

there’s so much ethyl it’ll eat the interior

better yet throw it back in one gulp

my hands are too shaky so you will need to chop out a few lines on the piece of stained glass in the glove compartment

under the pistol

don’t worry

it’s an extra i always have one tucked in my waist band

did i show you my special tooth

this molar

here man, look, back here

porcelain

filled with cyanide

don’t push me i grind my teeth when feeling antsy

feeling mighty antsy right now

the adderall is kicking in and i’m beginning to taste colors again

yellow tastes like the urine of this lady i know from back in the city

her eyes were a bright blue, like ice in the heart of a glacier, pure and innocent, when she first started selling herself for rent money they were the draw that got the johns to pull over, now two sapphires in a well done skirt steak, ten dollars and she takes you behind the dumpster and drains your concerns with a practiced whatever you want to use, i would pick her up and take out for nice meal every couple months for a nice dinner and to grab some necessities, she would give a grateful hand job in thanks and occasionally break down and sob, nothing makes a man ejaculate buckets of web fluid like a sobbing former model with a talent for heroin and delicate fingers

i always wanted to ask her about the tiny gold crucifix that sat between her deflated breasts

it always felt like the wrong time or place

she spammed the brakes when they cut her dope with stronger cheaper dope

she got the high she had been searching for and it was only going to be downhill chasing this imaginary dragon for life and her heart just stopped

delicate fingers with the suits of a deck of cards in blurry india ink on the knuckles

grab the wheel while i tie off my arm

used to have veins like angry eels

they would stand tall beneath my leathery tanned skin

now they have collapsed in defeat

ever watch a man shoot up his taint in a booth at arby’s

embrace the need for curly fries and an erasure of the line between subtle reality and the thing screaming in pain

howling like a wounded beast

circled by hyenas in the tall brush

my friend mixed cocaine into wax and i thought he was a genius

the ultimate way to smuggle drugs

he laughed and broke off part of one and inserted it into his anus

called it his colombian suppository

he went mad in a haitian prison

clawed his own eyes out screaming he was under a curse from a voodoo priestess

when he was a boy he frequently wandered the art museum and imagined what they would look like on fire

ayahuasca bob and the alley of gloom

he talked about the voices in his head and it was sort of a joking point to a group of adolescent idiots with no grasp on mental illness

we used him like a human missile

aimed and launched and watch the devestation

fell into a bad way with the triad and ended up hiding out from hurricanes and angry asian hitmen

doing enough drugs for all the voices that rattled on about cleansing fire

until he gave in

human after all

and that is the crux of this journey in a parked car with a hostage in the parking lot of a dollar store in rural alabama

at what point does a man realize there are no more monsters left to slay

that a body bent by age is no longer able to fight the good fight

when it is time to make that grand exit with head held high

not a husk hooked to machines

final words a series of beeps

or an effigy carved in flesh and draped across the broken glass covered highway cutting across the heart of what it means to be in control

to be in control

there’s mdma in the eye drops

or blotter acid

russian roulette on the precipice tonight

buckle up and put your hand on that emergency brake

i’m going to floor it

just let the chemicals take hold and close my eyes

write my obituary in donuts on the police station front lawn until the sound of my father’s disappointment is drowned out by an over stressed suspension

hold hands with the mannequin in the gimp suit i keep screaming at to pass the cocaine

just pass the fucking coke

falling apart and singing danny boy with a cracked voice

inching closer

never knowing when to stop the total breakdown

jerking the e-stop

the sickness gets in deep

deep down

and red tastes like wine and crisp apple and tomato soup with a grilled cheese and frost on the windows

holding her hand as she exhaled her final death rattle and her whatever fled the scene

a shell where a person once lay

the remains of a chrysalis but no sign of a moth

she was old and long become a moth from a dazzling butterfly by the time you met

returned to universe to be harvested and processed and bottled and prescribed and counted and sold and crushed and inhaled on the dashboard of a dented beige beater in the dollar store parking lot next to the laundromat by the chinese buffet and the security guard looks suspicious

really playing with the oversized key ring and cannister of mace slowly being swallowed by his stomach as it spills over the strained strip of black faux leather from the same dollar store nana needs to get snorted in front of

call this the fentanyl rodeo

snort three lines and drive the three blocks home

hold tight and hide the dummy so the neighbors don’t get the wrong impression

fine outstanding recluse with a crippling addiction to more and an unhealthy willingness to give in to the urge

nice to meet you

let’s go get some dinner

maybe go on a bender

i’ll drive

you’re in charge of music