I will tell you the True Story
of how I may or may not have run away with the Gypsies:

Lured by the candy of carnival lights,
I walked out of my mother’s trailer
where a stuporous fan pushed heat
against heat. Or imagined that I did.

The Gypsies drove rusted trucks
all night, through tiny, gothic towns,
gorgeously ruined
with night-blooming vines.
Years later, I returned
to write this as a suicide note,
or in place of a suicide note.

My memories of the Gypsies
are both dark and iridescent,
like crow feathers,
like old necklaces.
I want to sell them to you.
I am lying. My memory is as cheap
and sharp as a broken bottle.
I want to gouge it into my wrist
so that you will pity me.

Now, as I rush
to finish this tale,
flames are beginning to char
the top of this page,
and since I am writing this
only in my mind,
I must dip my pen
into an open vein
of Gypsy-black blood,
of madness, trembling, lies and art.