....As she's walkin' out the door

Oblivious to the 9 to 5, hoop-jumping banality
of this bullshit 3-ring circus
you ride out the storm,
a trapeze artist swinging fearlessly among the clouds
Burglarizing the lightning
Brazenly
from those misty, malevolent masses
of sex and death,
like some precocious demigod.

You're a spiritual pariah, James,
a fringe-dweller like that causeless rebel Dean
with whom you share
more than a first name.

Each blissful burst of serotonin
is followed by a psychosomatic outpouring
of your dendrophilous desires.
Only this time, Jim,
you picked a more prickly sort of tree
and your communion with the cactus
cost you dearly,
leaving you broken in body in a pool of your own blood and pus,
a victim of your own hedonistic shananigans,
lying naked on the linoleum
with a sandwich in hand.

A kumquat sandwich.

You're a strange boy, Jimmy,
but still we love you madly,
and long to reach out and touch you again.

If we only knew how.