The Problem with Speed. by Damian Rucci

The problem with speed

is in the beginning everything

is profound and you are a vehicle

for pure energy; words find their

place beneath your fingertips

are born in the spaces between thoughts

work is no longer a nuisance

it is a nothing more than a challenge

your brain fires on all cylinders

hours slip by in the crevices between minutes

you are fireball, there is not enough traction

on Earth to slow down your trajectory

then at home, you are engaged

perfect partner, listening, truthful

emotional, sexually open and hungry

in the beginning you make love for hours

howl into the sudden dawn and collapse

into your lovers embrace

Three weeks later you’re slowing down

you don’t care about stacking the cans

at work, just sex, just completion, just come

just fury, just now, it haunts at your flesh

words are clumsy now, you stay silent

minds eye stuck on stubborn lust

at home the two of you are animals

every fantasy fulfilled; doctor’s masks

hanging on the door, plunger stuck to the wall

packages of gas station dick pills on the floor

you can’t even look at each other anymore

“baby we gotta stop living like this”

but you don’t, you can’t, you’re dialed in

two packs a day in your lungs, you are burning

you don’t write anymore, you just wait

you’re drowning in four feet of water

and when the lust gets too much

you stroke one out in the bathroom

at work, just to free the mind from

the devilish mix, it works for a little bit

but sometimes things go sideways

when you’re pondering your fate

as you are three strokes from completion

while the guy in the next stall let’s out a groan

you can hear shit hitting the bowl

there’s has to be more to life than this

you hope, as you finish the job

Damian Rucci is a writer and poet whose work has recently appeared in Beatdom, Eunoia Review, Ramingo’s Porch and basements and coffee shops across the United States. He is the author of three chapbooks, a split The Former Lives of Saints w/ Ezhno Martin) and his first full length The Degenerate’s Anthem is forthcoming from Spartan Press. He writes a column on Street Poetry for the London magazine Public House and is a poet in residence at the Osage Arts Community in Belle, Missouri.

Damian Rucci

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