Stumbling in Circles

Musta been quite a sight, a story for the fam-i-ly
Drivin your Welly Combined Taxi round Rongotai in the morning, 2.30 on a roundabout you see this
student in the pansies, drunken, skinny, dancing deliriously
He got kissed by the girl of his dreams is what was up. See,

At the bottom of the steps, where ciggy butts and loners go
She squeezed his shoulder, spun him, stopped him cold
chapped lip to nervous grin, pinned a kiss the kid
didn’t think deserved to come. Lowered her status. A kiss
out of the view of everyone

See, he’d been at his platonic female friend’s party,
poker played on green felt at twin tables. Nibbles and dips, legit chips, cigar snips. Helluva shindig, what with the
hostess in a retro floral dress (his platonic friend, mind,
no-strings dates, just mates, lingering fingers fumbling
on the button for crossing. Prolonged eye-glancing).

Anyway,
our matron handed round the canapés on Oriental Bay Salvation Army stolen trays. Two dozen Bohemians on couches filched from the op shop. Fat Freddy on the Bluetooth; smoky living room. MDMA, jays.

He wasn’t the alpha (that was the flatmate-ogre in the corner) but that was okay. No hope of getting laid
so he overdid it on the Jäger bombs and shots,
went-all in on a flush and lost.
Those ownin the poker merged into a supergroup.
A lotta liquor on the lounge lizards, some midnight
Barry White, that sorta mood

What drove the sensitive kid off was the unevolved Homo Erectus flatmate’s man-hands graspin the arse of
our man’s platonic, female friend from Creative Writing 101.
She gasped; he checked his phone til the awkwardness had passed. The kid at his meekest (obsequious vegan, bony, stoned, hardly eaten) couldn’t last

Luckily, she stopped the evacuee at the bottom of the steps.
A pash, a giggle. Lick of lips. World paused, reset.
He wobbled home from Miramar to Berhampore or wherever the fuck, found himself lost near the airport, paid

way too much for the taxi, drunk, fucked up, dizzy, deranged, bipolar, drugged on glee (that flat up on the left, yeah? That’s me). Anyways, Mister Taxi Man, take it from me: It’s the number one killer in this country.
You don’t wanna die lonely.