Gavin Castleton: The Tarpit

I should thank you for making me an authority on losing. We're both addicts; you can't go a week without boozing and I can't go a week without getting impaled by some black tarpit heart dagger giver of all battery acid aphrodisiac I inhaled.
You toss thoughts of me back with hard liquor my appeal now paper thin, it's not hard to figure me out
of the equation and leave me alone with the one who laughs loudest at my jokes
and alone with this standoff grudge against the phone
knuckles scuffed down to bone
I knew you stopped needing me but I couldn't believe you were leaving.
I couldn't see the transplant for the bleeding and I didn't think it was a surgery worth repeating.

If I could make you fall in love with yourself, I'd do it.
Pull up a lawn chair and watch your species end there - in your own tarpit heart.

I see you're having lunch with corpses.
Painted question marks sit around your campfire lashes,
easing all features to follow your marco polo nose.
All your parts are so easily coerced into any campaign -
your face makes a slave out of you,
brown hair falling about you like well-conditioned chains.
You play the role of painting when I'm angry -
A lost picture that diffuses spite from bruises you left,
Inanimate but still contaminating every mental sanctuary til every artform needs renovating
and every self-examination becomes more necessary,
My grandpa's flannel shirts the new anti-therapy.

If I could make you fall in love with yourself, I'd do it.
Pull up a lawn chair and watch your species end there - in your own tarpit heart.

I think next time I'll leave a darker marker (one that takes at least two shots two wash it down) so you have to sneak into the club when I play your town
and I can be sure you're breaking things because I'm not around,
preparing the two words (you'll never say) in case I'm found.
My heart says that it's over
My hands are moving on
but the songs keep writing themselves
it's like my consciousness is fighting my uprighting my health
My ears can't hear you coming back
My eyes don't want to be involved.
My tongue will burn like acid
til the shape of you dissolves.