Noel Negele

You have to have some good reasons to love yourself otherwise you’re just licking your own asshole

“This is 500mg’s each, take with caution”

He said with a grin.

It was a good and rare
sunny September day 
here in northern England,

People wore t-shirts and shades
and bermuda shorts 
and they smiled and strolled around
as pasty as an all-white toothpaste 
getting redder and rawer by the second
and they drank pints of beers
and their laughter was loud but well hearted
as people entered shops
and got out of them carrying bags,
and at the town center 
a Gypsy dressed as a Native American
was whistling one wooden type of
musical instrument or another
which made me laugh 
and I threw a pound in his box
and decided to take a second Gummy Bear.

I had two bags
on the left back pocket.
Each contained six of these things
and the bags are small
and child-like in color,
and it would be unsuspecting
to any decent passing folk that I was
gulping down 500mg more
of weed in me at that moment.

Later that afternoon
I was with a friend at a fancy pub
at some place or another
( I never contain names of places )
And I ordered a cocktail 
taking down two more of these things
finally thinking agitated by the possibility 
of these things being fake
and how much I loathe violence 
in general.

On my second cocktail
I decide to enter the pub 
myself and I start flirting 
with the bartender as I guide
her to make my Paloma cocktail—
she’s this wide shouldered younger girl
with nice blonde hair, a pleasant eagerness 
to her movements and all smiles.

I decide to ask for her number.

It’s midnight and I wake up
at a train going to
Manchester.
I don’t remember much, but flashes
of me stumbling and my friend
asking me if I’m alright.

All my belongings are with me,
even my shades,
tucked on the collar of my
all too plain black t-shirt.
Everything but the bartender’s number
and a train ticket.

I take the last two gummy bears
I have left on me
so that I don’t have to stress about 
a possible train fine
and I lean myself cozy and tired
against the vibrating window
and I see nothing 
but absolutely nothing
on the other side,
only my own drowsy reflection 
trying to avoid itself—
and sometimes the random street lamp
is some field, across some road
shading light to something 
lonely-feeling like a small brick bridge 
over an unused railroad
or a glimpse of it through
some black and much too thick woods—
and then
absolutely nothing but darkness again
and my own face again 
realizing I’ll have to spend the night in Manchester 
and leaning deeper into the seat
and out of the view of my reflection.