so lonely…

away from you…and you …and you…

all gone…

there was my best man…a friend from youth…a songwriter now pushing booze to Lincoln Park patrons of fine single malts…

gone…

a chef who i cooked with…drank till dawn in dives when Wicker Park was edgy…he too was edgy…put on a helium helmet and told all goodbye…

gone…

mom…yes…her…well…never…

gone…

this Ugandan with a penchant for Bukowski and Tom Wolfe…went through women like a madman in an asylum goes through pills…always in search of the America his family fled to…

gone…

sanity…the ability to reason… plan…now replaced with visions of nothing but words running a gauntlet after midnight on a page next to a twin bed…

gone…

and i have stayed…through mere misses…near deathly departures…round after round after round of drifting along from one city to the next…

i am not gone…i am here…