gogoponypanic

One of mine,

My favorite jacket hangs in my closet, I never wear it.
It is old, far older than I, A gift from my uncle.
On the back there is a skull with a big purple Mohawk.
The man who painted it was stoned and demanded twenty dollars.
My uncle didn't ask for the skull, or the purple Mohawk,
and especially not for the paint splattered all over the rest of it.
That man never told anyone what he would paint.
But that was before my time, But,
When I wear it, I can feel the weight of age.
Sometimes I will bury my head in the lining and smell.
Everything worth knowing is in those smells.
There's sweat, and smoke (from everything from cigarettes to wood fires),
Blood and alcohol, sometimes even small traces of cologne and perfume.
When I shrug into it I like the feel of the weight of it on my back.
Sometimes it is almost like it speaks to me.
The cuffs puff out around my wrists, as if waiting for me to make a fist.
The leather is stiff and creaks like armor, when struck I barely can tell.
Lately there are holes in my jacket and I do not like it.
As though my past is eroding.
My uncle no longer played in a band, he is not Johnny Zero
for there is a hole in the collar
Two packs a day killed my uncle's vocal cords, he cannot sing
For there is a hole in the sleeve.
Tom Gabel never put my friend on his shoulders,
she never sang a song with him,
he did not compliment my jacket,
for the lining is a maze of rips.
I never sang about the yellow cat with my friends
For there is a hole in the shoulder.
Heatstroke did not almost kill me in the mosh pit of Against me!
in some dive in Niagara falls,
for there is a hole at the end of the zipper.
I did not get into a fight with a neo-nazi as Max sang of killing little girls,
For there is a hole in my jacket and it's letting my past leak out and
I do not like it.