barely get up the steps and I think he’ll turn around and go
because it can’t be nice for him and now he can see how drunk;
smashed; as if I got Stoli pumping through m y heart and it’s
fumes I’m inhaling, fumes rising out o f m y ow n veins or rising
from m y chest, like a fog rising out o f m y chest, and I am
falling down drunk and such a fool, in m y heart I am romantic
for him, all desire and affection verging on an impolite
hunger, raw, greedy, now, now, but there’s m y beautiful
dog, m y very gorgeous and fine dog, m y heart, m y beast o f
jo y and love, m y heart and soul, m y friend on romps and good
times around the block, and she’s jum ping up and down and
she’s licking me and she’s jum ping all over me and it makes me
fall and I say I have to walk her because I do, I must, she’s got
rights, I explain, I have this idea she’s got rights, and I think he
will leave now but he says, very quiet and nice, oh I’ll walk
her, you ju st lie here, and I am flat out drunk, laid out drunk,
flat and drunk on m y bed, a mattress on the floor, barely a
mattress, a cut piece o f foam rubber, hard and flat, it’s an
austere bed for serious solitude or serious sex and I am fucking
stretched out and the walls move, a fast circle dance, and he
takes her leash and they leave and I’m smiling but time goes by
and I get scared, I start waiting, I start feeling time brushing by
me, I start thinking I will never see m y dog again and I think
what have I done and I think I will die from losing her if he
doesn’t bring her back and I think I have to call the police or I
have to follow him and find him or I have to get up and get out
and call to her and I think about life without her if she were
gone and I’d die and I try to m ove an arm but I can’t m ove it
and there’s a pain coming into m y heart which says I am a pale
shadow o f what you will feel the rest o f your life if she’s gone,
it says yo u ’ll mourn the rest o f your life and there’s a grief that
will burn up your insides and leave them just bare and burned
and em pty, burned ugly and barren, obliterated; and I know
that if she’s gone I’m going to pull m yself to pieces, pull my
mind apart, tear m yself open, rend my breast, turn m y heart to
sackcloth, make ashes out o f m y heart; if she’s gone I’m lost; a
wanderer in madness and pain; despondent; a vagabond
turned loose one last time, sad enough to turn the world to
hell; I’ll touch it, anything before me, and make it hell. I will
rage on these streets a lifetime and I will build fires from
garbage in buildings and I will hurt men; for the rest o f my
time here on earth, I will hurt them. I will wander and I will
wail and I will break bottles to have shards o f glass I can hold in
m y hand so they cut both ways, instead o f knives, I’ll bleed
they will bleed both at the same time, the famous two-edged
sword, I will use them on curly-haired boys and I will keep on
after death and I will never stop because the pain will never
stop and you w on’t be able to erase me from these streets, I
