there are worse things than being alone.

sometimes I sit outside with
a glass of red wine
and a cigar.

that's when life makes sense.


and I think of
when you asked me about god
and my only reply was
'god doesn't exist
simply because we want him to
so badly'.
and you looked at me
as if I had lost my mind.

and I drank my wine then.
took a drag from the cohiba
and thought about
that
for just a minute.
and came to the conclusion
that you just
had yet to find yours.


so I take a sip, now.
and remember when the beach
was the end of the world.
and that sand felt like
the beginning
of something much, much
bigger
than ourselves.

back then, before the waves
lost their touch as
messengers of the wind.
and we could count clouds
on a clear day
pretending each was a wish.
from someone else like me.
just blowing the smoke
from their lungs.
and trying to write-
an afterlife.


this was. when the stars
still stood on pedestals
watching me
swallow down that opaque red.
and I felt like god
was a manifestation of my own
shallow, inebriation.

before the shirts were stained
from tears- when death
made itself so abundantly
clear.
and I had no fear of
immortality. then, the world made
sense. and I
-I felt like breaking down poetry
in the name of
being alive.


drinking from this glass.
I still feel the ocean.
and hope I never wake up
alone
in this perception.
because, death doesn't always
come in the form
of a casket and a
gravestone.

and dried up ink. is something
like a blood clot.
I still wish on honduran leaves
and columbian ashes.
only now- it's something more like
counting to ten
and hoping my past forgets
what it's looking for.


letters are for the pretentious.
I remember you told me
when I said
I wanted to share my nostalgia
with you in the form
of old notebook paper
and coffee stains
on the corners.



if only you knew.