Clint Catalyst

I have tired of my face pressed
to the windowpane staring watching
waiting gazing at this bloody month
of winter unwinding itself before me
pumping lost love letters and
lipstick stains on private parts
in its flow I
have tired
of it
I am tired
so I shamelessly step
from a life lived by
scrupulous selection into
the apocalyptic fury
outside inside: a
cinematic panshot
the remains of myself given over
to frosty pink lipglossed hookers skirting
about in see-through blouses and
micro spandex wrappers slit
to the curve of ass cheeks jiggling in
twenty-five dollar anticipation of
some john who’d like a snack to eat
I’m the only one who seems to
be paying either attention or them
and I want to brush my teeth
brushing off a Suzy Wrong with
a flyspecked complexion who
can barely speak English
pleading “you want sucky-
fucky?” and poking her
chopsticked fingers at me
my boots shuffle by
dry on chipped concrete the
sidewalk cracks resembling
veins lonely for someone’s teeth
I make it to my fluorescent-
lit mailbox and
laugh as if I’m mocking
the whole codependent
romantic notion, trying to
pretend I don’t know damn
well that yesterday’s date
was February thirteenth
Valentine’s Day licks its
vampire chops and
drools ropes of red tar like
severed arteries
my stomach churns with
nervousness as I stick
my mailbox with the stake-
shaped key and twist
and turn and
peek inside its
guts there’s
an offering of a single
crimson-colored
square piece of paper which
I yank out like an abortion
and head back across
the street toting
the casket of red death
beneath my arm and
grinning shit at the call girls’ hissing
“Here, kitty kitty” my
thoughts are frisky-frenzied and
distant my heart races with
all the possibilities of an empty-
cornered envelope
the intoxication of remembrances
an address to return to and
memories to address
with an abbreviated
version of a smirk curled
in the corners of my mouth
I shove my thumbnail unseal
pry but what I find
inside yanks my tongue
out and smashes
my ribcage from the
impact of that pot-bellied bastard
cupid sprawled out on
a generic greeting card
the message “I’ve got an eye
on your sweet tooth, Valentine”
streamlined in the shape of
an arrow and “Best Wishes
from Dr. Stepka, d.d.” some-
thing-or-other down
at the bottom the
sweet slogan in script letters
words that
curl and close themselves
around me:
all my living breathing something
turning nothing, empty-
gutted like last year’s
heart-shaped cardboard box,
a shell that once housed
chocolate treats now
graveyard of past lovers and friends
packed to the hilt
I stiffen with the ghostlike
reminder that love
is a noose
dimly or definitely or
disguised like
those letters of “Best
Wishes…” are lies
in peppermint-colored curlicued drag
to drag a sucker in but
then again I’ve
never even cared about
the trumped-up sweetheart
scene, have always known that
bit is
no disease for me
I head towards my
place, cut out
scissor-stepping hard and
brisk and cold
a rapid streak so
quick I can’t unveil or even see
the emptiness of dark mascara-
clustered eyes surrounding couldn’t
can’t be anything
like me
I step
feel the whirring of flared nostrils
step and
force a smile
I step
sway my arms as if I’ve got snake-
eyes beneath my sleeves
because being sincere
solves nothing
I step and
step and make
it to my stoop and
solve my problem of the moment
by leaving it behind:
Valentine’s Day a past
now passed
shot down like
this gunpowder night that
sighs with its
softbound sounds from the gutter
wheezes coughs and
spits out a slit-
stained backdrop for
a crumbling city
St. Valentine’s a
myth forgotten a
false belief outgrown
like training bras or hopes
for true love treadmarked
by the sole of my shoes
that step
I step and
for a second before I kiss
the delusion smack-dab on the lips,
I am afoot with
reaching my remembrances
dressed to the teeth
in fabulous

vacancy

— Clint Catalyst, from the book Cottonmouth Kisses

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