the security guards play penny poker in the shack i walk through every morning

asking me to stay in town instead of heading out next week

funny how the ladies get so talkative in the morning and ask a million questions from a face they see for thirty seconds a day

incrementally staving off the boredom of the day with inane niceties and probing looks

one offered to let me crash at her place until i find one of my own and i turned deep red as her cohorts cackled evilly

can’t get out of their there quick enough yet wish to linger and avoid the beginning of the day

when did this summer of love become divorced from reality

when did my hopes for a fresh start become more of the same in a different location

i’m just another sacrifice to the tiki gods tossed into the bubbling lava of life’s discontent

no penny poker

no falling in love with waitress or the poet or the random chance encounter

just going through the emotions of going through the motions of going through life with motion sickness and sudden bouts of emotional bleeding

what next horizon leads to the same old misery for christsakes

in a world of infinite possibilities the needle has begun skipping and the video buffers with an endless hourglass spinning

need a bottle of wine and a flask of clear liquid courage

a pack of smokes and a pack of papers

show sobriety i don’t have to be it’s slave and let burgeoning addiction run their fetid course

as we walked the malls last night and so many happy people held hands and wandered aimlessly

like that blind bastard cupid with his weak draw strength and bent arrows always seeming to hit those around me while flipping me off and bouncing his cherubic ass to a different cloud

deal me in ladies

let me play a couple hands and drink until the nausea goes away

i don’t have cash so it’s either play strip poker until i’m emotionally laid bare or take me on faith of a smile and a losing hand

show me what i’m doing wrong in this life

take my words and my eyes and my teeth

file off my fingerprints and dump me in the ravine of broken hearted dreamers with a penchant for bad poetry and a wind up heart

skittering down the boulevard of no win chances and dead end culdesacs

but don’t check the deck

i pocketed the queen of hearts to whisper to back at the hotel in hopes she’ll step off the laminated into the illuminated

she winked at me

what can i say

i’m a sucker for a pretty face and an emotional abyss i have no chance of crossing