King Of The Sidewalk. by John Grochalski

i am drunk

and she is outside my bedroom

shouting into her cell phone

this is a bad combination for the night

i look out the window

to sidewalks full of dogshit and misery

to a starless sky that screams city

and the dim lights of dim homes housing dim people

and she is pacing back and forth

a hat riding low on her head

and a trust fund college sweatshirt on her back

she is shouting some inanity

about what kim did to lizzie at the bar

or what derrick did to joe at the office

absent co-stars in this one-sided war

that she and i currently have going on

loud enough for the whole neighborhood

to know her petty drama

there is nothing to do

but lean my head out the window

and tell her to shut the fuck up

the words stop her in her tracks

she glares at me

young and dumb and in possession of the world

and i glare back

old and drunk and knowing the world isn’t worth it

finally, she says

you know, you’re not the king of the sidewalk

and i look back out

at the dogshit and dim lights

trying my hardest to find the moon

before setting my eyes

back on her dull and dimwit face

finally telling her

yes, yes i am

i’m king of the sidewalk

and if you don’t move

i’ll have your fucking head

before regally closing my blinds

and passing out on the poking, rusting coils

of my lumpy throne

amidst the falling ceiling plaster

and scattering cockroaches

of this dark pleasure palace.

John Grochalski is the author of the poetry collections, The Noose Doesn’t Get Any Looser After You Punch Out (Six Gallery Press 2008), Glass City (Low Ghost Press, 2010), In The Year of Everything Dying (Camel Saloon, 2012), Starting with the Last Name Grochalski (Coleridge Street Books, 2014), and The Philosopher’s Ship (Alien Buddha Press, 2018). He is also the author of the novels, The Librarian (Six Gallery Press 2013), and Wine Clerk (Six Gallery Press 2016).  Grochalski currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, where the garbage can smell like roses if you wish on it hard enough.