Sadness and Other Songs I Haven’t Learned to Dance to

by Damian Rucci

trayce B

back home on the coast I chased down this sadness with every cigarette sucked into the crevices of my lungs with every double shift of work beaten into the soles of my feet with every line of drugs I followed into the swan song of morning

and when we left to Missouri I thought i left it behind me stuck in the infinite crashes of the atlantic on the beaches of Long Branch tied to the pillars of the boardwalks we dodged daylight beneath

but it found me here too as knots on the breaks of my knuckles as piles of trash along the floor as empty white paper, as broken lamps as tears streaming down the pale of your face

here the sun shines from a different orbit the stars dance at night, cicadas sing choruses for broken men and I dance drunken home, hoping my dreams will bring me closer to holding you the way I should

outside on the porch now I watch the moon escape from its prison glow heavy and amber, it sings me songs that I haven’t learned to dance to tomorrow the sadness will return grim but expected, tomorrow I’ll fail again maybe all along, this sadness was a song too but I can’t ever remember how it goes

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Damian Rucci is the author of 5 chapbooks of poetry and the unofficial poet laureate of every 711 in New Jersey. His work has recently appeared on gas station bathroom walls across the Midwest. He is probably banned from your local bar.