One Day in July

(Previously appeared as May Day in The Opening Line, May 2015)

He stood in the doorway, his face pale and dirty,
stubbly beard, sweat glued to his forehead and brow.
He remembered the Godfather
standing before the five families after the wars;

“How did we let things get so bad?”

His studio was the war zone,
clothes piled high on the floor
unwashed for many, many weeks;
he was wearing the cleanest of the dirties
he picked off the floor that morning. 

A shirt was covered in cigarette burns; the couch too;
the sheets of his bed were piled up in a wrinkled mess with
months of sweat and grime pasted into the cotton.

Paint was peeling on the baseboard,
plaster hanging from the ceiling
the radiator was clicking mindlessly
like the demons racing through his head.

In the kitchen on the mud stained floor
there was a plastic garbage bag
filled with empty Vodka bottles;
Royal Gate Vodka – the gate he had entered
to feel this sick and lonely.
The Venetian blinds were warped and melted from
that time the stove caught on fire when he
was trying to… trying to…
he couldn’t remember what he was trying to do;
he had been in a blackout.

He walked over to the bed and laid down
curled up in a quivering ball, broke and sick
he reached over for the phone on his night table
frantically dialing numbers, his hands shaking madly
he heard the phone ringing and ringing
and finally he heard someone pick up

A voice on the other end said, “hello?”

There was silence for what seemed like a frozen day
and then he heard himself say, “Don, will you come get me?

“I can’t go on like this anymore – I’m finished…”