Talking To Myself
by Akeith Walters
Lightening,
the amber tarnish of an evening sky,
flashes.
I watch through the front room window,
and remember when life was a hot summer night after rain,
when bar hopping
meant strutting across the blast of a neon dance floor,
not sitting in a neighborhood tavern.
But the dance of course did not last.
Like shoes,
people wear out after they’ve been used a lot,
graying around the edges
from the scuff of finally having to stand still.
And lightening stops being the fireworks of someone new,
some stranger whose stronger hands know how to touch,
to push,
to bring a callused distraction to head,
and becomes instead just the upshot of restless thunderclouds
seen through a dusky window
by a tired, tarnished heart waiting for a surge of youth to return,
if only for a little while,
even though it never will.
Still, like an old erotic memory,
bourbon burns both throat and gut,
swallowed straight or not,
and comes in handy when waiting for a stranger
to stop snoring in the backroom bed.
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