Up on the pedestal

Down on the floor

Starve me to pieces

Beg you for more

Up on the pedestal

Then hit the floor

Cracks are growing

Resistance is worn

In panic

Intolerable

Intoxicating

In moments of confused free fall

What is there to reach for but you?

Manipulation through

negative space

Lights blind high by the cornice

The cycle renews as

Limned edges of revenge boil

I say you hurt me and you

Hurt me for this

Who knew the crash

Would be less painful

Than up on the pedestal

Back for more

Such a beautiful horse

How could you resist

Breaking my spirit, or breaking me in

Cat and mouse, but you’re always the cat

Tit for tat, but you get the tit

And you get the tat

And I get nothing

I get nothing for all of that

You were handsome then.

Curly black hair framed flawless skin

and straight teeth white in a smile

above spindly fingers probing the neck of your guitar, thrashing spider legs

crawling through my ears

plucking my emotions like flowers

cascading on a river bank

the soothing reverberations of your talent

enough to silence thoughts:

the improbability of greatness

in a person before me

a man with average abilities besides--

--or boy, as you were

with a future as bright as your eyes

skimming Glendora Mountain’s winding Road

your right hand bucking jerkily

on the shifter of your yellow ’82 VW bus

while your left rubbed your nose amid laughter.

Yes I like it you said

yes I do

and I laughed too

the crowing instigator of a new sensation for you

your partner in crime

who brought the coke and lined it

on a CD case

behind the grassy hillside.

I worried that I would dig deep and narrow

collapsing the walls on myself

I worried that I would develop an addiction

but I never worried about you.

Far more responsible than I

safe in the embrace of a loving, wealthy family

the doted upon only child

I envied

I never thought you would be the one

to trip and trip and never catch your step—

Because to me you were a mix of endearing idiosyncrasies

and intelligent conversations

jokes evolving faster than viruses

and your naivete— when it was still cute

an idealized version of you

causing most of your subsequent women to hate me

for having you in some innocent past before

Your womanizing began

Your irresponsibility began

Your callousness began

Where did it all begin?

As much as I paradoxically hope not to find the beginning

I follow the thread but skin has grown over

Barely, a delicate layer that is sliced from beneath as I

Exhume intact a trailing hair from our past

As much as I hope not to find it

in the end the root is clearly that twilight hour

driving down Glendora Mountain Road

high on your first addictive drug

that I supplied for you

And as much as you have forgiven me

by never blaming

and as much as bystanders advise

the pitfall was yours

a dully glowing pearl

waiting inside

for the right moment

that surely you would have found without me--

--As much as you are to blame

or maybe, in the intricacies of fate,

more

I should not have shown you

that first step

on a long and monotonous staircase

to the crystal ceiling