Intoxication

I'm like a martini or a really good bourbon,

an acquired taste that will soothe your spirit,

unless you over-indulge: I'll get you

drunk, send your head spinning into the night behind the clouds, devour your fears with my bone-deep lust, trick you into thinking

you are a god

But watch out, the night never lasts, stardust fades in morning light, beautiful shimmer desecrated to filthy, grubby dust,

and oooh-la-la, that hangover, you know the one--

every cell in your body half an inch to the left of where you left it when you kicked off your shoes and dove naked into my dream,

while I lied and said it wouldn't hurt, because you never learn

and always forget that I'll do anything for magic,

no, not the hocus-pocus kind, nor Hecate with a hex.

Real magic comes when it will, slips in through windows left open, taking back what doesn't belong here, exposing reality

for the drab, power-hungry, innocence-killing, brutal, mundane, greedy cankerblossom it is.

Take an aspirin.

Stop voting a straight-party ticket: your lazy gate-keeping let all the monsters in.