Burberry Blues

brandy and lemon drops
guiding my dysthymia
as I sit, mired in your essence
(but my skin and its oils are not as yours,
and the memories come in course:
hemorrhage, clot, and so-forth);

i, too, am not you.

i waited a whole night for your replacement.
the neuron cluster-fires, pinprick blisses
coming to a head (eruption, erotic
maledictions whispered,
swift quiescence coming after)
promised to me
did not come.

these hopes, fantasies
and affect-less memories
have all abated.

in jars, i keep them:
like the coveted clover, numbered of four leaves;
like the child's butterfly, now sullen in glass-house solace, and without food;
like the mad-man's slips of paper (frenetic notes, filled with warnings to a future-self
who would never be there, and never was):

they have withered,
and grown brittle from too much sunlight,
and crumpled under Newton's weight,
and crumbled into dust.

as the dusted drops rake the palate,
so too does the brandy soothe
every tiny, burning cut.