Love is my drug

Not the sex I didn’t have
The pot I didn’t smoke
The cocaine I didn’t snort
The heroin I never shot

The chemical never did
Attract me much. And even the
Bottle and bars never
Left an impression beyond
The rings in the wood before me.

No, only love made me crazy;
Only love drove me to places
Others would rightly call desperate,
And silly and foolish and well beneath
A man of such breeding and education

Only love could bring out the boy in me:
The screamer, the crier, the weeper,
Seeking that Great Atonement for all
The sins of his checkered life.

Only love could bring me to the edge
Of cliffs and canyons, where, staring out
At the abyss, I’d contemplate
A leap I’d never dream
Of on a city sidewalk

I had my share of loves
And some were grand and some were
Not. Some I will carry with me to the
End and some I’ve tossed aside
Like bad lettuce and wish I’d never known

All in all, I think this sums it up:
I have stood below the castle wall
And waited,
But Rapunzel never let down her hair

Still, in sun and shadows beneath that wall
I stood patiently; ever hopeful;
Writing what I think are poems.

12/09/2011

Posted on 12/09/2011
Copyright © 2025 Ken Harnisch