Somewhere on my stroll
 
 with the monster,
 
 I’d lost these things.
 
 Feeling Good
 
 became a matter of scale.
 
 One to ten,
 
 “ten” being one step shy
 
 of shredding the time-space continuum,
 
 “one” being ten steps shy
 
 of dropping flat in my tracks.
 
 Every increment
 
 required meth or more meth.
 
 I didn’t have to go all
 
 the way up, but up,
 
 I did need to go.
 
 After a while, even high,
 
 I could almost
 
 make believe food
 
 didn’t taste like cardboard,
 
 almost float
 
 down into REM sleep,
 
 almost function
 
 the next day,
 
 almost look forward to my
 
 almost 17th birthday.
 
 I Would Celebrate Several Ways
 
 One with my family. My mid-October
 
 birthday always meant a
 
 trip to San Francisco to play tourist
 
 on Fisherman’s Wharf, scarf