A Month

Dallas, Texas: I hate your
mirrored buildings. I have
broken the hearts of all
of your women and they, in turn,
have broken mine. The ones
you cultivated inside your blooming
desolate, white-washed suburbs
and was it there you taught them
how to file their teeth? that you
taught them how to look so good
in their underwear? They kiss
like apparitions on their
satin bedsheets. They unfasten
the clasps on their bras for you
so you don't stretch out the material.
Dallas, Texas: your borders will never
stop growing and what's worse
is that I will never stop loving your girls. Never
pull my head from their rivers to breathe.
I will stand in their rainstorms
with my head to the sky.

Houston, Texas: I spent six years
of my youth in your arms and all
I remember is your thunderstorms,
the greensky tornado warnings and
the toads who would exit your bayous
to have their ribs flattened by
luxury vehicles across the blackest of
asphalt.

Austin, Texas: I have sat in your
bars and hidden from your beautiful women
behind fistfuls of cigarettes and tumblers
of whiskey. I know that I have been pathetic, but
Please do not scorn me. I will flourish
inside of your streetlamps. Shower me
in the green light of your traffic signals.
I promise, I will redeem myself. Give me a month.