W: Rhombus Seeks Help

Rhombus Seeks Help

"My name is Rhombus,
I am addicted to everything."
Around him eyes were raised
by those already lost to themselves
as he spilled forth
the vitriol he no longer felt,
defending a past that was not his,
accusing a present he still loved.

The acned youth,
whose addiction to computer games
had brought with it
a habit of drinking late into the night
while he fought and destroyed
non existent fears
in increasingly fascinating ways,
was the first to leave
covering his mouth to halt the vomit
that found its way between his fingers
as his other hand held the computer mouse
he had hidden in his pocket
for comfort.

The executive in her pristine suit
of matching grey skirt and jacket,
who had taken to drink to stifle the guilt
of her need for sexual encounters
with strangers in the street,
and her desire to inflict increasing pain
which had once ended in a partner's death,
as yet undiscovered.
She was next to leave
mumbling an excuse
about where she had parked
to hide the flush of excitement she was feeling
and the need to find a new friend.

The school teacher
whose rejected lust for a colleague
had turned into a bottle of Scotch a day,
kept to hand in his briefcase,
just to soothe the fear
that she might tell his wife
of his fumbling attempt at rape,
or seduction at the point of a knife.
He stayed for a while,
sweating with fascination,
though he burnt his fingers
chain smoking.

The priest, defrocked for the incident
involving a crucifix and an altar boy,
retreated to the bright room's corner
and cried while praying
to a god he knew hated him,
and to a bottle he had hidden
in a hedge near his bed-sit.
The bottle, he knew,
would give comfort.

Which left just the group leader
to listen to Rhombus's tale.
A middle aged woman
whose self-importance
had helped her to counsel
a hundred hopeless cases
through their first attempt at recovery.
She was so successful,
that no-one had ever returned to her
for a second attempt.
She would wake in the morning
to find her husband's body beside her,
the victim of a hundred wounds
no more, no less,
inflicted with a knife
that was never found.

In the car park outside
the closed down civic centre,
Rhombus passes a bottle of cheap sherry
to the mumbling man
next to him
and watches the flames
escaping from the brazier
where the brochures on breaking habits
burn addictively
banishing the icy cold of the November morning