D. B. DEVILLIERS

I was thinking earlier today, when I put on
a sad song to listen to
while smoking the cheapest cigarette sold
and it felt cinematic and I thought about
what my funeral might look like
and what song I would ask them to play
and then the thought occurred to me
of fifteen people or so standing around a
box of me, awkwardly, and a
hole while something I
thought would be nice plays on a
Bluetooth speaker and everyone
avoids eye contact, waiting for the
three or four minutes to end,
and I thought about this and I finished
my cigarette
and I vomited something that looked like
coffee rinds.

this is not pretty, this is not beautiful,
this is exactly what it has to be
and I’ll write until I can’t move my
fingers anymore
I have to
I’ll wake up at like two o
clock in the morning and I’ll look at the
boxes of everything I still own and I’ll
wonder about a few things, beer
in hand

will they sell these socks? They were good
socks and someone will appreciate

them, and
no
no one will appreciate them except for me
they’ll end up in whatever landfill services
my corner of this black flammable rock
and they’re pretty good socks
because who has the time

people die, people live, people make
do

my guitar, I just bought it! It’s in my car
in an impound lot
my best friend got drunk and stole my
car and I guess my guitar too ha
ha
and he got it impounded and I guess
managed not to get a dui
he’s a lucky guy
like that

and I’m not even mad
(I’m only white-hot homicidally furious)
and I can’t make it right myself because
as my one or two regular readers know
I am simply and profoundly
alcoholic
and probably would’ve wrecked my fancy
fucking car anyway on a
long enough
timeline
so fuck it
right

but I would’ve liked to have had my guitar

I want to take the keys to my car and
hold them upright against the surface of my
childhood desk and sit there for a second
work up the will
and then bring my head down, swiftly, so
the key pierces my eye far enough to hit
grey matter

probably wouldn’t kill me
nevermind then
why bother
who cares
the binary thinking of the critically ill
mentally at least, and sometimes physically
so then how the fuck do I end this poem
I have to deal with things and don’t have
time to stay up all damn night writing it,
though I would, in better circumstances
but these are the circumstances I have

this is not a cry for help
this is a screaming atomic banshee shreik
help me
please if you can
help me

a person (this poet)
cannot and has never been
able to outrun
himself and so finally I’m overtook
my race ends
they fire the starting gun again and again and they pull the runners up out of the pool
they set their bodies up for the rifle
portion of the event
the bodies don’t fire, of course, they’ve
drowned because they’re
runners you put
in a pool

you never even taught them to swim
let alone to
fire rifles

yeah god, that last one is directed at you.