terrified of virginia woolf

hey there, old mirror laced with dim golden baroque rhythms on your sides.. 

ask me a question, i promise to answer it well in your bar tonight !

—and off he spins like a hippie in john’s meadow

to beat his breast with brandy. 

the scene’s alright:

the air gently suffocates newcomers

with her afterhour pollution

of tight held hands,

tipsy promises

(forgotten two sips later),

crippled thighs and dripping taps,

dragged even further by a drunk blissful beggar dreaming for a mirror’s q.

hey there, old mirror—

how’s my question, doll ?

her frame drags heavy on the barmaid’s nail as ceiling fans shake her dust,

an’ oh so eager to drop the drunk,

over she coaxes a honeyed boy

with eyelids weighed by hours of Manhattan worship 

clutching lipstick from his rebound’s bag tight in his shaking hand,

possessing a reflection unseen by any in her booze-blind glare. 

impatient,

matte rose paints chalky on the dust-covered glass,

& from that babe’s shaking hand, cursive ragged and his breath just as bad,

comes the hungover mirror’s question:

do you fear life without delusion ?

lungs dissolving to pink mormon chalk, liver poor as the hudson

our drunkard screams:

of course, old crack ! 

it is by her— a terrifying imagination—

that i survive.