The Only Way

I must open those boxes

for that which doesn't exist

in text anymore,

has been blotted

in there,

that fucking repository

called memory.

I must carry searchlights

to look for reasons

in that muddle of

overlapping passions,

for keeping my distances.

Does this increase your

list of assholes?

Yes, I don’t like many people,

generally, and you've become

nothing but another

number.

I must do all that and write,

for it is the only way

I could, eventually,
end these periodical asides 

while reading my Burgess

and having my tea.