"bulletin board"

"bulletin board"
written with the windows open by jake kilroy.

with severed nerves pinned to a bulletin board,
these arms flashed and reached out for the bookcase
to learn a thing or two, to take the knowledge in,
to feed the mouth words, to dine on the truth,
to swallow the pride, to bask in the glory.

and so it was that the streets of the mind flooded with women
borne from the sea of a calendar year shoot
carried by the waves of sweaty concert hands
taken to the church of the metaphor-saken holy
all to let this heart pop like a coo-coo clock
with the last sip of rye on the tip of the tongue
as these carousel pupils found the damsel in this dress
waiting for a man to finally read her gone with the wind
in the middle of the night by memory and swagger alone.

then what good were the hot showers so many years ago,
when we were burning off the sunshine that stuck to us?
i'll say it, just like every lover's said it before me, goddamnit;
i traced constellations in the freckles of your back while you slept.
oh, what a future i told myself before i cleaned the sheets and moved.
what a dream i had seen between the second and third glass of wine.

this year, i'm a bounty.
that year, i was wreckage.

oh, then, then!
then there was a drug-riddled assassin at play in my throat
and a sharpshooter drinking himself thin in my eyes.
i waited for you to come home to take you out
to show you the world, to beg for it back,
to carve up the earth, to dig at the past.

oh, how i was a loose cannon firing on all cylinders then,
and you were a beauty.
no wordplay,
no styling,
no joke.
you were goddamn gorgeous.