Fuck You

Fuck You



You cannot understand
This leather jacket
And me.

I don’t care
If you want
Or don’t want to

Try.

I can’t even ride a bicycle.
This jacket, embroidered heavily in orange on the back, on the silver pin on the lapel
Says “Harley Davidson.”

This jacket is ancient.
The guy who wore it
Has got to be

Dead.

No one
No matter how desperate for drugs or drink
Would sell this beautiful, wonderful thing.

It squeaks quietly when I move, muted.
It is softer than any human’s skin.
It sleeps on me, so lightly

Like a lover, like a tiny coddled baby, like my own pre-birth placenta, like God.

It has gray veins
In its darkness.
Its zippers have been repaired.

Someone cared about
This thing.
It was

Him.

The man at the shop saw it on me
And knew, just as much as I did
That it was mine now.

He sold it to me
For nothing
Almost, I swear.

He smiled and told me to wear it in good health.

I don’t know who he was,
Who wore this skin.
He might have been insane.

He might have been bad
Or good
Or just

Trying

Just
Like
I‘m trying

Right now
Not to
Cry.

He might have had AIDS

Or killed himself with
Heroin or
Jack Daniels.

I’m taking over for him.
I’ll do the living now.
I will work this part.

The jacket will take the weather that still is falling.

If, when I step out of my goddamn pretty Prius,
A fucking “real” biker wants to look at me
EVER

With disdain, with a sneer,
As if I am a poseur,
As if I do not wear this shit with the utmost honesty,

That asshole

Can go directly
To fucking

Hell.

by Coke Brown Jr. -
as posted on Coke's Croaks -
www.cokescroaks.com