For Eric (An Ode to Walnut Creek)

Walnut Creek
where a certain type of human gathers
sucks the life out of things
and is filled with a sad, hardened
type of vampirism

People with no desires
beyond their blindly digested,
media-served opinions
morality culled from years of video games
and the bland world of television

For fun they manipulate one another
through ego-driven dead-end trips
strokes and flirts
drunken fucks
performed in temporary locations
promises never uttered to each other
and not kept, even to themselves

Walnut Creek
amazingly picturesque valley
an ancient abattoir
glutted with half-grown souls
sticking to one another
like wet shit in bog mud
only miles from the coast