Cycle of Dribble

You are hops and barley – a canyon of carcinogens. Nicotine-packed existence stinks like wrinkled fingertips. My childhood tastes like an LP repeating Patsy Cline with a side order of your beer cracking open. You taste like the South-Gardner Hotel. Stone Road should be proud of what it’s raised; Pat, the village drunk, allowed your kids to be molested. Wrinkled fingertips stink like the latest boyfriends’ cock. I’m haunted by the cadence of your teeth chomping at night, your scent; stale tavern air. I still can’t stand to watch you prepare food with those hands – your soft whorishly taboo touch. My therapist will whisper, “close your eyes”, and there I go, visioning a stumble down the hallway like a ping-pong ball. As one tends to like maternal affection, which is why I saved your written compliment on my poster [of President Garfield] – for a decade. Loved picking out the pineapple chunks from your baked chicken wings. “What you’s up to?” You lobster-caged my love for fourteen years. The frayed placemats of a love-bond conjure laughter - creepy placemats. Sitting in a recliner, chewing cashews between each addiction at commercial time, denying any oral fixation as embers drop from your mouth to mar the fabric. One day you asked me how I was doing. Miss Muffett squeaked fresh cheese curd between her teeth, became a musician because birds fly west. That’s Amoré! One day you will ask me how I’m doing, the day you need a break, as scorching snow melts your blood-fused ankle. If only the bottle could cut you off, “no more for you”. Woke myself up the other day – was teeth chomping and humming “I fall to pieces” .