Ordinary Person

I’m drinking alone tonight while
the staccato rainfall outside
increases in intensity,
I hope the liquor burns through
everything and engenders a numbing
bliss, my pupils are dilated like
two cavernous black holes
swallowing matter,
the antihistamines have
dried my throat and lips,
I want a pluviophile’s serenity as I
get through the night,
peaceful thoughts like the
little, watery ringlets
circumscribing the cobblestones,
not a haunting or possession,
madness which makes me
face facts telling you that
I’m wasting my time writing
and you’re ruining your life
making music,
that we’re only flattering
each other when we say that
we’ll both get what we’re looking for,
we bought into the illusion
that dreams find a way
into reality like a sliver of
moonlight passes
into a darkened room,
sold our souls to it
and though we know deep
down that muses only find
those who don’t
go looking for them,
we continue, looking
for inspiration in
the wooden cabinets
and broken headboards,
you violently composing
a coda that sucks the life
out of you, needing more
and more, and I, writing
sonnets in a puritanical fury,
fiery syllables eating up
the joy of creation,
we should stop,
find something else or
go somewhere else,
but the itch, the pull,
the draw,
the afflatus that is earthy
and not celestial,
that is mere stimulus makes
us look for more than what’s
given us, outside the realms
of laughter and devotion,
making us fall down a well
of delusion, the only light,
the false fire we
forge in our calloused hearts
to spur each other on.