For Fred [ver 2]

browsing through porn video after
porn video
an uncomfortable hot radiating from my shins
and from my back
a saliva sweat saturates my skin
flush folk guitar filter in through my headphones
making an aquarium of my teeming head

i wonder what the people on the elevator will think of me
in 10 minutes
will they know from a nervous twitch of my lips or
my anchored eyes
will they be able to smell my shame
my hedonism
my

sickness

my thoughts drift to Fred
like exhaust at a red light in December
i don't even know how the cancer took you
bones, skin, brain, lungs
maybe the lungs
i know how you smoked for the 50 years before me
but stopped with my birth
a new life for us both

and i do know how the illusion of this new life smelled
as you lied confused
in your own sweat and filth
on the cheapest looking bed from the hospital

i fucking hate that smell
a beautiful man reduced to
compost

i never get to the elevator

i leave the shower on cold