another poem about my sanity

a seventh year old man told me, “you’re going to
get cancer smoking cigarettes.”
“I can hope,” I told him.

on a day like today
where the flowers dance
and quiver all at the same
time
I smoke one cigarette outside
and spend the rest of the day drinking.

they do not understand
though
that for me to drink and smoke
is to find internal
happiness among-st the putrid stench
these animals produce
as they light their fancy
cigars
and drink their 300 dollar bottles
of alcohol.

someone at a poetry reading (which i hate
attending, but it pays) told me that i’m losing it.

i invite that son of a bitch
to drink and
we drink and drink
and he lights his cigars
and i take hits from the bottle.

“you’re really losing it, Viktor. You’re writing has become mundane. you have nothing to write about anymore. are you fucking enough?” he tells me, rubbing his hideous beard, licking his large, dirty lips.

i take a hit and nod.

“well, shit, you have lost it then,” he tells me.

i pay the bartender, say my goodbyes to the people
who stayed, signed a few pictures of myself,
got in my car,
and drove onto the freeway.

as i drove west into edinburg,
i saw a flipped car on the freeway. the poor bastard
was trapped inside, cops swarmed around him,
fire trucks flaring red and blue,
ambulances coming from the east.

maybe they’re right, i have
lost it, standing still at the end
of the tunnel,
but at least i can
still the light at
the
end.