When I look back now at the things
he tried to teach me - things he did
not even know himself -
life lessons for society's rejects -
I feel shame that I already knew them.

How to steal a cassette from a record store.
How to convince a landlord
payment is on the way.

His feelings had never been trampled
along the way - until he confessed to me
that they had. It was a secret only for me.

He became proud of
how much weed I could smoke -
matching him toke for toke -
and then
surpassing him.

(I never got the whiskey down - though.)

When he left to go find the world
and himself - he told me to wait for him.
And to stop crying.

We were lovers at a time
when it was not allowed.

I set out on a journey to find him -
only to find out he'd been cremated
by an uncaring city and world.
AIDS got him before I even knew
what AIDS was. 

I've been drinking alone
for more than three decades now.

Hugh Blanton is an Appalachian expatriate who wandered aimlessly before ending up on the west coast. He has appeared in Drunk Monkeys, The American Journal of Poetry, The Scarlet Leaf Review, and other places. He lives in San Diego, California.