Bonamour
A joyless room, in a loveless time,
in a building called Bonamour Court
(the irony lost on me).
The walls — stained, off-white,
pocked with others’ memory-holes.
The sad parquet — scuffed and shuffled over
by dynasties of lonely.
Beggars can’t be choosers, I think,
and furnish it with thick smoke,
with smells of stale booze and rancid flesh;
haunt it alone through long nights,
lying ramshackle on the rough floor,
deep in the chemical black.
The empty bottles accuse from under the sink,
from kitchen drawers and hidey-holes –
in every dusty corner: a shifting, clinking
weight on my mind.
One workday 4 a.m., I wake
with the cigarette-singed laminate skin
ofThe Complete Sherlock Holmes
stuck to my cheek,
its sad emerald-and-black checks
bilious in the pre-dawn dark,
and wonder — who I am,
and where,
and why.
I try to recite the alphabet
(P then R, R then P, N then M, what comes before Z?).
I can’t remember the Lord’s prayer.
Can’t spell “Descent”, “Denouement”, “Dying”, “Devoured”.
Can’t stop the shattering quiver in hands, heart, throat,
where whimpers lock tight, blocking breath.
The fridge is bare as my belly.
There is nothing more to drink,
nothing to be done.
Dawn finds me crouched,
numb-toed and swell-tongued,
in ragged underwear,
staring at a burned book,
hugging my knees and my despair,
in the ruins of this one precious life, unlived.
Here I will return, time and again –
to similar rooms in similar buildings,
in hotels, retreats, institutions,
the homes of friends and strangers.
Always waiting for the miracle –
for the corroded switch to trip –
for the water to rise and wash me away –
for it to get bad enough to end.
Almost convinced that nothing but death
will be enough.
Until, on another 4 a.m.,
years and miles from Bonamour,
you took away the bottle, the knife, the reasons,
and said: I love you. It has to end.
And at last, I agreed.
Under five-foot-eight, but bigger than despair.
You’re how I know that love is stronger than death.
First published in Stories from the Space Between by Warren J. Banks. (2019) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QHWWLHV
