Horoscapes: Capricorn

 

 

The kind of guy who steps up the slide & slides down the steps. Not until you wake up in a stranger's bathtub with black shrubs in your mouth, bobble head full of fog blurring the edges. Not until half-mast & half past two on the morning after the after after party, greeting curdled daylight through thrashed blinds, a ballast of bottles at your feet. Not until you're standing in the raging maw of night, all arrows pointing to your favorite stool again. Not until you stop to watch a house burning, standing there letting heat needle your skin. Not until you rush into a house to save a tricycle. Not until you ask the nurse for a sip of whiskey & she laughs it off, mistaking it for a joke. Not until the doctor catches you imbibing rubbing alcohol in the bathroom. Not until the bandages are ready to be removed. Not until you see the burns yourself: sinuous trails wrought in black chalk, no one to blame for their destinations but yourself. Not until you ride the elevator two floors up to where a janitor asks if you're lost or you need some help, & you say Yes, please—that’s the time to call it quits.