karma’s a bitch (or everyone writes like Bukowski when they’re down)

The reactions to my laptop being pinched

are mostly questions about me –

How many poem sketches on the hard drive

or hidden porn links that all knowing angels will see come judgement day?

Picturing the past is now reliant on my shitty reminiscence…

all my life and work swapped for a twenty-minute high

that won’t even be mine…

Now I talk to myself daily about my loss:

You can’t quite get comfortable in your couch can you

you bought a new itch

a realization that you are not going back to 2002

with that woman who is now your wife

but will never again be your bride

with or without those digital photos

of the honeymoon.

Maybe you were clinging

afraid to try something novel

pretending pictures are the past

petrified you might not even fossilize correctly

holding and holding

your mediocre cards