by Selputure {mood disorder}

This poem is the sixth one written for January 2010′s Read Write Poem Mini-Challenge (to write six poems about starting over in six days). It was also written for Read Write Poem Prompt #111: Broken Chair. I ended up going back to the theme of alcoholism with this, the last poem in the series with the theme of “starting over” — perhaps because I knew someone who struggled with it and didn’t survive. I guess I keep hoping for redemption. I hope you enjoy the read.

-Nicole

P.S. To see the other mini-challenge poems that I am writing this month, click here.

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Electric, my burn and buzz brain
has brought me down to a broken chair,
the latest in a series of holy visions
bequeathed by delirium. This is how
you die of thirst in the desert with nothing but a
busted-up, empty-bellied ’71 Cadillac Fleetwood with a
crowd of empty beer cans lying scattered on the back seat. The beast
died three days ago, coughing out gas fumes and
retching out a death cry of metal scraping on metal from inside its
ancient steel throat. The sky echoes its paintjob in
faded, teal sick covered with rust. And there’s dust in
the breath of this desert, playing a dirt smoke harmony with
the sweet and sour stink slowly pouring from the mouths of
the beer cans. It’s a perfect, white trash sendoff
for a sweatshirt and steel-toed fool – which I am,
now kneeling in worship to a
figment with three legs.
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