Apologia Pro Vita Sua

Let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish.
—John Henry Cardinal Newman

I was drinking too much
again

and thought of how we cannot touch
except through thoughts
painted in large and smeary and garish words
only bits more seemly than those
on your random toilet stall

but sometimes gut
is what you get, what’s correct
and this thing in me that could be love
or roses if it worked out right
has yet to crawl out of the sewer
of my insistent Id

Fuck. I know. But

even Romeo
in some kind of real life
would neither spit nor worry the envious moon
over Juliet’s fair sun

He’d just think about J's cunt