Wearing White
Jc Fairchild
At the crack of dawn, in early fall like a pit of November He rises from his bedside, raw and naked from our sheets Goes to his closet cove, his feet like a gentle giant Dog slime on his pinky toe, as she snores by the door The rain pelts against the window’s gleam Of the tattered youth gone so soon His curled fist with ruby red and bourbon glow like splinters in the soul As he clutches his greasy wounded skin and tries to let things go He gutters and groans, his knees choke and arthritis takes hold This misshapen being with blood and cigarette ash Within his tall shadow across the floor The amber glow of a Jack Daniels, his cologne spilled cross the dresser drawer The silver tooth of his belt buckle he feels at times is brighter than his future His pale lips, thin and sore His sighs, although across the room hit my face in a hot tremble The whispers from his world echo in my mind of those sleepless nights Cold feet pressing into my side, angry stares the ceiling wishes it could return Bitter bites like rose stems, his hands like claws into his thighs As every night he sits like a caged beast Flipping through pages of wanted ads and things he never said Some nights he tries to steal away all of my warmth And I’m not greedy to a cent As he slumbers, some nights deep, the others unsound Curled into flattened pillows and the wedge of my arm Youth slips back at the creases like a hidden chapter was found Until he pulls away As the brain taunts and the heart pulls, declaring hunger is always in town Waiting to rip him limb from limb
For everything he wanted to be, and not ever being The failed doctor, or the artist who didn’t go too far And in the morning, not even birds sing
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