all apologies [death and taxes]

they've been playing a lot of nirvana on terrestrial radio recently.

which is great, because i need all the nirvana i can get.

it was over 20 years ago that nirvana was unleashed on the world in all its rock-righteous, unbathed glory, but they still sound as volume-cranking, adrenaline-swelling, fury-injecting fresh as ever.

yesterday i began the hauntingly resonant chore of catching up on back taxes.

["my child arrived just the other day,
he came to the world in the usual way,
but there were planes to catch and bills to pay,
he learned to walk while i was away..."

[last will and testament of 1978: 3 years of back taxes.]

but i'm here to complete ours...

and as i thumbed through endless papers, like a worn deck of cards, i listened to the receipts tell a copyrighted, bound and printed story that had never been issued.

first edition. published 2010. a year in the life of an addict.

in true golden state style, this girl was the healthiest, well-balanced addict; hitting up all 5 food groups as hard as she hit the bottle.

"cherry tomatoes, salmon,  1 L vodka..."
"avocado, tempeh, 1 L vodka..."
"cantaloupe, cottage cheese, 1 L vodka..."

but it wasn't those white light receipts that paper cut my heart. just a solitary piece of paper with two lines:

"water. tums."

and the image of a man, with tired eyes and a mortgaged future, pulling into a parking lot; desperate for relief. desperate for release.

[if a paper's worth a thousand words...]

remorse, slather me thick; cake hard and heavy; sandbagged soul.

[i didn't know.]

hose me down, power wash me; filthy, four-legged, fuck-up.

[howl.]

squinting into the florescent backlight, she flinches at the pharmacy's mistake. 120 fioricet, not 60. ecstatic horror. like she's drunk dialing her lover, deep fried in a guttural orgasm, pan seared in rapturous, rock star fantasies...this isn't going to end well...

but for a few hours, i didn't have to be me.

because, follow the paper trail,...who would want my life?

oprah likes to starfuck this phrase to exhaustion, "my friend, maya angelou says, "when you know better, you do better...".

[i didn't know.]

i don't care. you don't have to believe it's a disease. i know it is. relentlessly pinballing, silver streaks of sanity slipping away.

we're sick and we're selfish.

[now i know.]

"all in all is all we are...".

i just prefer nirvana.

["and i swear that i don't have a gun"...]

kurt and i. we're all apologies.