“Hustle and Heart: A Life on the Edge”
Got a hustle on my side at the pharmacies. The partial shelf—excuse me while I help myself. Excuse me again while I help myself and help you too. I’m down for sharing—it's caring, right? So here’s some for you, and one for you. This bud's for you, me, and I’d like three, please.
Drinking my lunch, partially partial to the fine foods, spending money like it grows on trees. Not much to show, you know, or maybe not. Lunchtime hustle, courtesy of the RX delivery service. Service me again, service myself to your money. Not proud—a thief. The shoe fit, but not today. I’m sized up like Tom Sizemore, on my way to the garage to get high at Mom’s pad with a grip of items. Pills to cash, I took it.
The partial shelf, I racked it. I cleaned it out. Daily, weekly, monthly—what was yours was mine. A broken thinker and poor judgment, making so many bad choices, I don’t know where to begin on that subject. You bet. Passing the hedge test daily. Don’t lie, you’re a scumbag too. High and mighty…
Drop the top, and drop your top. Show me, show me you, show your boobs, and I run the show. Show runners and snow blowers, blowing snow and snowing blow with your rock-and-roll hero, watching fools OD on their egos. Amigo, that’s me—your bestie. Amigo, here I go.
Get me two tacos, ya bender. One beaner, pinto and cheese, please. I’d like a Modelo and a model, yo, but you’ll do, so I’ll do me. Why doing you? Head explodes—my intensity and passion, just too much. Love short two, so it hits the shelf like days later.
Skater. I’m still in the streets, grinding your soul. Surfer. Surf style, flex fit, mad hatter with pockets full of pills. Taking anything without my name on it—that’s stealing. And rhyming, it’s all new to me. I know you don’t like it or me, or you see yourself in me. Once bitter, twice shy—I am sensitive. You may hurt my feelings. Me too.
You have felt it, dealt it, variant Delta, flying not so high these days but dusted in the wind. Bye-bye. My apple, your eye still sees me working, one day or week just blindly taken. Taking Liam’s place, staying so busy I don’t have to think about it, so you shout it. Shout it out now. The devil made me do it—paris. Yes, the devil, ooh, scary, scary, scary.
Dance with, dance off, pants off in Beverly Hills and thrill. Cheap, like I’m holding a brother’s big bad company fight. Janis in a driveway and he's dead—not him, but him too. Dropped and gone. Shot and gone. Cops killing—not me, him. Making even worse choices. I bounced. My path—treatment centers and bathtubs in Dana. Get my point?
Leading to New Mexico. Where the heck’d he go? Bye-bye-bye. And I didn’t kill him either. Rather sus, but they danced their devil, not mine. Liquid, instant blackout, and there I go, almost by myself. Always loaning, loaner, loan her. If you can afford to give it away, give it away now. Gave it away—had to eat, so I took it. Rooked it. Rook you. Rock you.
Focked you. Focked her, and her, and her, not her—yet. Bet upon me, on my back. My name—you said it and more. Hang you upside down like on a cross. Swingin' big dick—you owe me, grew me, screw me, screw you. Got loser’s intuition with a rock in my shoe—not, it’s a lift in one. So no more pills and the thrill’s not gone.
Loving life. Thrilla, thriller, thrill her. I dis her too. And her, and her, and her friend. Then skipped her, but not her. Butt hurt, she said. He said. Holy shit, said Fred. Right on a night on, nights off, lights off, life’s out. Almost sad as I just met you, love you, miss you already. Mean it.
-2022
