“This mutual condition of my heart and my head
starts with a glass of the best, the noblest rot,
sweet stream of kisses all the way down the tongue
and esophagus, into the gut, where there’s nothing
but knots—bouncing, fluttering mad to unravel
hyper strings—this is my constant instability.”
I shut up and glanced about the doctor’s office, absent the whining
and wailing of the ER, but dense with smokers’ laughs, and jokers’
coughs. I was assured the best specialist for my type would,
of course, set up in the backroom of a bar.
The doctor finished writing, then closed his eyes,
consulting the loyal theories that had stayed since he was robbed
kindly of his license. He smiled broadly, then said:
“Children lie about many things
because they don’t know any better.
Adults lie about most things
because they do know better.”
“Huh?”
“You’re fooling yourself. Forget blaming alcohol;
you will never be fit, right in the mind enough to talk
to an attractive woman without salivating, spitting vitriol
instead of intended compliments. Your lub-dubbing heart
will flick all your words, your hob-throbbing brain will trick
your tongue, while you look like a slobbering degenerate.”
He seemed to speak from experience.
“No matter what you want, try to say or might think,
you’ll end up fucked.”
Well, good—mission accomplished:
I saw someone about my sweet addiction
and learned it wasn’t my problem. No,
my constitution wouldn’t allow me to stand
still for one date; impossible for me to process
one place and one face at just one time.
I’d need a new way to stab at relations.
Confidence restored, with a resolution in mind,
I rushed out into the bar, ready to purchase multiple glasses
for multiple women, while winking and asking them
about their space-curving dimensions.
Quacksalver is such a sorely underused word.