Chelsea

I’m standing on Alameda sidewalks smoking packs of filtered suicide and you walk by nonchalant and oblivious and its 1983



Music is in the air like pretty little razorblade heartstrings and I follow you to the Chelsea where you nod at the doorman and disappear



I stand for a moment gathering courage like flowers for your funeral and run my hand through my long, greasy hair and look like some reject from a Vaudevillian nightmare in black leather and tattered jeans from the Salvation Army



I follow you up flights of stairs smelling of Robitussin and roses and I hear your footsteps and they beckon me to the end of a dimly lit corridor carnal carnival awaits the lifelong loser that I am



The door is open and I see you’re wearing a black raincoat cut waistlength and those eponymous eye glasses and you’re hair is pink and your breasts are firm and I want you but I want what you’ve got in your bed side table more than life itself



I strip to the waist and my body shivers as you kiss me swift salty and then grasp my groin and I know I’m your slave once again and you sink your fangs into my undernourished neck and drink like the demoniac from the Dead Sea



When my payment is complete you produce my salvation and my deal with the devil is done and you say to fucking eat something because I’m too thin and my red blood cell count is low and you’re tired of fucking paying for seconds from the sewer



I fix up in the hall after you’ve slammed the door on me and I feel warm, whole and sane and the morphine washes down the backs of my legs and I sit looking at the number 13 on your door and light another coffin nail and drift off to dream