Murphy was a dignified coke smoker
My fondest memories
are intimate with the same psychopath
who stole my credit cards three times
before I turned him in
and turned my back on rewinding
incurable momentums
towards meeting mortality
On the afternoon we met
soon after we discovered
we both had run away from Kansas City
and respected nothing and no one
he lay in the middle of a busy street
an asphalt angel screaming
Arbeit Macht Frei!
and I found myself flailing
roaring right next to him
so loud they could hear us on the balconies
over the car horns –
I cite the synchrony of the rising shutters
and stupefied concentration
we commanded over the cookouts
we didn't set out to crash –
and when the cops got called
they dragged us back to the sidewalk
and threatened to pistol whip us
unless we promised to never do it again
but since there is no law against being
a stark raving lunatic
they had to let us go
and we went and got rather drunk
on rotgut whiskey on my roof
and talked about holding up a convenience store
only instead of stealing anything
we'd show up with a pillow case full of pennies
and threaten to shoot ourselves
unless they counted them all in front of us
twice
From there I was sunk
because Murphy had the rarest of all neurological conditions
Hysterical Nihilistic Gnostic Turbidity
something that had gone undiagnosed in me
until we broke beer bottles over our heads
and asked the checkout girl at the grocery store
a lot of questions about enemas
with dried blood trails down our faces
and the canvases of our plain white t-shirts
We had so many previously lonely obsessions in common
namely laughing through trying to kill ourselves
like drinking through the blackouts
till we woke up still drinking two days later
or how he liked sleeping with multiple homeless women at once
I liked stealing furniture and destroying it in the front yard
we both liked making everyone around us uncomfortable
and violently ill whenever possible
I started burning bridges and telling off important people for sport
he started smoking crack in his closet
and committing every form of fraud he could conceive
to come up with the money for the dope man
He ended up drowning in the bathtub
when he ran out of crack
and the Xanax and Somas kicked in
He slipped under the water
returning to the womb
never to be reborn
I wasn't there for the funeral –
no one was –
and now that he's dead
I'm free to rewrite history
so no one can suggest
he was just a scapegoat
Ezhno Martin doesn't believe in god, pronouns, American exceptionalism, most conventions of capitalization, monogamy, any form of censorship, that 9/11 was perpetrated by Muslims, casseroles, coming to a full stop at stop signs, chivalry, patriotism, hand washing after bathroom visits, rough sex, decorum, the importance of biological families, and/or that The New York Knicks are ever going to get their shit together. Ezhno lives in Toledo, Ohio. Ezhno is now from Toledo, Ohio, because that's how that works.