Some of the Parts

My reflection got a new girlfriend so it’s not around in the morning to help me shave.
My appetite left me ’cause of my lack of taste.
My shadow is at the cleaner’s and my memory is in the shop.
My heart won’t return my calls
And my soul is on tour with Kurt Cobain.
I remember how he looked out at me from the cover of Rolling Stone:
Staring down a train and he wouldn’t step off the tracks.
I’m feeling empty as MTV.
My ribs are like a storm drain catching the occasional used up dream.
I’m afraid to have any of my own dreams,
Presently being so insubstantial.
Any kind of hope in my chest would carry me into the sky
On lazy warm currents of yesterdays long gone by.
No, I shall remain careful and earthbound,
stitching together a new shadow from old newspapers,
a tattered silhouette of personal ads dragging behind me
as I go a-questing for my recently departed parts.

Well, now isn’t this a sight?
I should have investigated the pool hall straight away,
but I was feeling optimistic.
There’s my reflection, bright with the stolen light of its new girlfriend.
Appetite’s over there turning a plate of barbeque wings into bones to fence the graveyard where tiny ideas go.
At the pool table, my heart is arguing with my memory,
Cue sticks raised like green felt jousters.
Heart says, “Linda Lee was watermelon on the hottest summer’s day.”
“I can’t abide such crazy talk,” says Memory. “She was as worthless as Ray Charles at a peepshow!”
On the bar is a telegram from my soul:
STILL ON TOUR. STOP. KURT SAYS “HI.” STOP.
THIS TRAIN IS THE ONLY WAY TO FLY. STOP.

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