The End of Nights Part I

I published a poem in my collection Inhale the Night called Dark Knowledge. It’s about a lost woman named Leanne who finds herself in several relationships after a debilitating accident. She loves a man named Gene but can’t bring herself to end it with her other suitors. This is a continuation of her story in a weekly serial, The End of Nights.

The End of Nights

The slip into Dark Knowledge
Left her cold hands seeking
Warmth but Gene had gone
Away – she was distant,
Damaged goods ruined
For the taste of every day
Commitment.

Take the highway to the
End of the night, the Doors
Played on the radio and
She obliged.

The road was much
Better as a man,
Leanne surmised: consistent
With its turns, but dangerous
With speed, exhilarating her
When wet in ways Gene
Failed to understand.

He was happy with his
Whore, because that’s what
She was, regardless of political
Correctness or the modern slang.

There was little left of him:
Reminders on the sheets she
Couldn’t wash: cigarettes butts
In the ashtray she kept burning
For the smell – she hadn’t
Smoked in years.

Leanne grasped the Marlboros
Bought in weakness, yet
Relented underneath the guilt
Her mom had died from emphysema
And a broken heart
But one drag couldn’t hurt,
She thought as she sped
Down the interstate.

© Ben Ditmars 2015

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Find the next episode here.