(one short breath)

My brain is the fork is the neck in a young man's neck when he goes back to where he's been so many times it sickens him to count the number of mentions certain names have made. the fucking places. the tired events that shaped him with just enough hollow inside to hide from another pile of dirt and dozen goddamn laments.

Biding his time through the winter. through what should've been snow but wound up fog and rainy streets of brooklyn where he raised the better parts of his head (in spite of himself it still seems) in the company of a king.

But that old man's gone now. forever, at least. surrendered to the trappings of his own maddening age while his wife learns to cry again for the first time in so many years as a young man can remember between his vices and own life's obligations.

Twenty, at least. maybe more.

And now we all choose the path to forgetting. because it keeps us when we don't know which way to turn for love. for guidance. for the biggest smile you've ever seen in your life if even muddled by time.

And that holds us with him somehow, along the tortured line we'll all just have to walk alone until we have to watch him die.

And then...