This side of paradise

Seek paradise,
They said.
The priest and the rockstar and the mentor that should have stayed a teacher except for that cigarette you shared in the parking lot that one time, but I had to say something
I can never say nothing.
I wonder if that’s just me and if you love me because of it or despite it and if other people feel this profound sadness and don’t mind it
And order lunch and go to bed early, so they can get up and job before the commute bumper to bumper but it’s nice when I’m stopped under that one billboard plastered on another old brick building either a bar or a homeless shelter
And I see you in the neat glass of Maker’s Mark with the clever, sexual tagline, not clever enough to remember the diction, but I do remember that feeling
And I continue to seek it