The last ride of the Heartbreak Kid

Perhaps it’s best not

to pick the ones with the scared eyes.

How often can you

rescue a rabbit from the trucks

headlights?

Why are the pretty ones always so fragile?

I’ve been told

that a bad man can drive a good woman

crazy.

This is true.

I’m the man they come to, once they’ve gone

insane.

But what is it within me that even wants to

play caretaker, to these sick

insane

emotional time bombs?

(why do they have to be so pretty?)

It’s not my fault that they’ve chosen

the wrong men, in the past

or that their horrible fathers were

drunk

molesting

insane

or that their mothers were

too weak to do anything

but finger their rosaries

cry bloody tears

and

exude a pitiful and useless air.

But

it is my fault that I lack the strength

to resist a pair of

sad dark eyes

or a pretty smile

that plays off those eyes in

a most disturbing way.

Remembering the things I’ve said

to those faces

 in moments of infatuated weakness

causes me to wince

as if I’ve bitten into a lemon

when the truth is that

I’ve bitten into something

far less healthful and

far more bitter.

A tumor of a memory of my

malignant foolishness.

The only hope for salvation is

to somehow wean myself

from this need to be needed.

-Symbiosis-

But how is it love

when it goes on to be parasitic?

With me, a tick

Swollen on the blood of

the damaged.

Austin, TX. 1998