I. Curiosity Opens Addiction

With eyes like the swaying pocket watch
in front of the nicotine addict’s nose.
She shoots glances at me;
not for the purpose of murder,
but rather to shock Her victim
with a radiance around Her
making eyes of the blind turn in their sockets.
An alternate addiction.

She smiles.
Her mouth is a Japanese flag,
grinning in reverse coloration.
Her thighs rub against one another,
against…nibbling my eardrums,
atop the clap of her
Kangaroos nylon joggers.
She speaks
and asks me as I look up,
I mean if it isn’t too much trouble,
“Can you watch my purse?”
while she goes to the restroom.
Oh, if only you had a name
which I could claim
as my own fantasy.
She’s so pure,
yet so filthy…like me.
I try to think of what to say,
of what her existence means to me.
Nothing but a crack addict’s stutter.
“Ugh…ye…yeah…anytime!”
She exits the scene.
Olga McCrae’s voice echoes on the faded wallpaper
“Brenton, Allen.”










II. Exposing Track Marks

With eyes like Nestle rabbit’s strawberry syrup
slowly overwhelming milk, 2% low fat.
His tracks marks are exposed
when She leaves the room.
Three seats between this tired man
and I’m writing this as it happens.
The dark cloud that appears
after the rainbow but before the thunder.

His hair
is freshly combed
with last night’s sleep on the sidewalk.
I know he wishes.
Jealousy fills his face
as She approaches me.
He pretends not to notice
and counts the holes in the ceiling.
He scratches the underside
of his body-ahead of it’s time-
and brushes his finger
slightly against the track mark
stamped upon his blue vein
running opposite side his elbow.
His eyes play Evil Dead
or Linda Blair twelve years old on the bed.
Slouched in his chair,
he bites his fingernails,
spits out their remains
into a sack he folds neatly into his shirt pocket.
Olga McCrae’s voice echoes
“Brenton, Allen. Brenton, Allen.”
He finally rises out of his seat
raises his hand and pulls his sleeves over his arms.










III. Withdrawal Symptoms

With eyes like a seamstress following
the needle as it sews the L.V. upon
Louis Vuitton given by my beauty as She smiled.
Her purse colored rusty wood, grasped tightly
against my ribs; stabbing through my chest.
The room is growing colder as I shake,
my addiction obvious
through the cameras stalking me from corners on the ceiling.

They see me.
I try not to look
directly at the camera’s lens.
We’re all test subjects
due to cocaine and alcohol.
I’m lost within
an igloo of solitude
as my teeth chatter a fang out of a molar.
Yet my love still crosses
my mind like a crucifix
showing such suffering
I must endure today.
My companion is Her purse.
As I wait for my love,
as I wait for Olga McCrae to say my name.
I stop to think and I
feel like calling in a bomb threat to a school.
Only Olga McCrae at the front desk,
munching on her Krispy Kreme
original glazed doughnut,
is in the room
to share in my confusion.
As I hug Her purse,
and wish I had a needle in my arm.










IV. The Hassle of Olga McCrae

My love has not yet returned
to bless the eyes of Olga and I.
The anticipation drives a Philips screwdriver
into my stomach,
and turns it counterclockwise slowly
so that I may recognize every passing minute.
As Olga McCrae waits for permission
to merely call Her name and inform me of Her title.

Olga’s worked here
longer than I’ve been coming.
Veins on her legs
like state boundaries on a map
hold together
this two hundred something pounds
of pure patience
in dealing with us people.
Us addicts who throw tantrums
over rehab hassles,
and a lack of Medicaid.
Spit in Olga McCrae’s face everyday.
As for the past,
Olga and I have exchanged
thoughts in conversation
like that time she asked,
as she lowered “Rebel for the Hell of it:
The life of Tupac Shakur,”
“Have you ever seen Grid‘lockd?”
I had but I denied
for I knew
where the conversation was going.
Olga McCrae finishes her donut
then is en route to the toilet stall.










V. Love Rehabilitation

Her eyes
The mute could scream like dog whistles
if they shared Olga’s sight from the bathroom stall.
A yell dubbed off of Wes Craven
as deadly blessings creep Sharon Stone.
A subliminal syringe pinches my thoughts
and injects the feeling of lost phantoms
running their fingers down my spine.
I realize how long I‘ve held Her purse.

Security on his walkie talkie
flashes towards
the women’s restroom.
Olga‘s sobs are heard.
I follow with Her purse in hand,
because even though
curiosity killed the cat.
Society killed us.
Olga McCrae
in the arms of security,
her back turned away from
the scene as I
kick an empty prescription bottle,
labeled Baclofen,
beneath the sink
in the women’s restroom.
And there’s my beauty,
my love defined.
Her smile beneath open eyes
on her back counting the holes in the ceiling.
As paramedics arrive
and push me out the rehab front door,
with my love still on my mind
and her purse still in my hand.