Well, this isn’t exactly a new poem. It has been on an, almost entirely faded receipt, buried in my wallet for almost two years now. The only legible part of the receipt part itself is: “The Laughing Skull Thanks You”

I wrote the poem when I lived in Atlanta. At the time I was employed as a movie theater projectionist, a job that I absolutely loved. Since the theater I worked for has since gone out of business, I wonder if I an ever get that job back again.

The girl I was with at the time had promised me that she would come to pick me up from work, and so I didn’t go to catch the last bus home. I waited for hours, but she never showed up. Instead, she got drunk with some frat boy friend of hers, or some such. That felt shitty, lemme tell ya.

Anyway, to apologize, she bought me dinner, take-out, from the burger place called “The Vortex” in that trendy neighborhood. I remember, while waiting for the food, there was an old homeless woman, drunk as shit, sitting at the bar next to me. She asked me questions about how to get money, how to get home, what to do next, now that the bar was closing. I didn’t feel like I had many answers for her. She wandered off. The food still wasn’t ready. Most of my life that day consisted of waiting. To pass the time, I wrote this.