Kristen de Kline #240 Summer nights 4

+
out by the empty fire pit, you’re
reading Hunter S Thompson

the dead are chattering, small
talk about summer nights, cruel

and ghosts, relentlessly chasing
you in dreams that don't seem

to end, was it you who said:
I can’t live with or without you

forget it, I must have dreamt it

+
he took himself out: a single
gun shot to the head, down on

Owl Farm, where the darkness
catches up with you and owls don't

cry, in the blackness all I can make out
is your glowing cigarette and the taste

of ash, burning in my mouth

+
I destroy myself
again
and
again

it's as if I can't     breathe
properly, where's my Ventolin

outside the window, faint
strains of love and strangers
in an open car

+
thirty bulbs and a flashing star
topple on a spindly branch

did you have to throw Christmas
in there, doesn't it drive you mad

more ash burns up in my mouth
your cigarette burns a third

black hole    in my heart
don't       look       back

nobody wants to play ball