I Am Not Alone

It has been a gaudy life

Dropping down the canyon
In a teenage summer night
Deer eyes and post reflectors
Mark the way from Wyoming
Into Utah and onto Bear Lake

The moon went out

And we could see the bright music
Ringing the rim of the lake

Gus Rich's
Sweetwater
Bluewater beach

A neon necklace of adrenaline
Bright against the black water

Smitty mufflers rumbled us through parking lots
Cold malt liquor foam
Tires crunched the gravel’s dust
Rose in the headlights
Guys hollered Girls laughed
Cold malt liquor foam

And the music
God! the new music
In the redolent dance halls

Rockin Robin
The Stroll
Ebb Tide
Pulsing from cranked up Wurlitzers

Utah girls in pastel summer dresses
Sea 'n' Ski brown summer skin
White Shoulders perfume
Salty sex in sunwarmed sand

And at the end of the giddy night
The theme song:
Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu
Cuand' la musica dolce sonata soltando per me
When the music so sweet was playing only for me

And it was only for me
All of it
Mine
Me

Until all there was was — me

And the cold malt liquor foam
Empty parking lots
Shed lives
Full ashtrays and empty highways
Running into another dawn
In Idaho
Nevada
Arizona
Montana
Colorado
California
The same blue bathrooms
Peeling paint
Rust stained sinks
Bloody sheets

Another angry dull eyed woman
Across the car
Same me
Running on empty
Living in a bad movie

Until it got so simple

I am dying

It was so hard for so long

A gaudy life in empty places
Hallucinated delusional
Brilliant as a casino sign
On an alkalai playa in a Nevada night

Tall isolate
Bright illusion under false light

Buzzing above the greasewood

scab rock
rabbit brush
vomit

Illuminated in the middle of nowhere

And half a lost life later
I was in the dark and on my knees

I asked for help and meant it

The false light went out
The buzz and bad music stopped

It was quiet

The moon came out

I felt the promise

I am not alone