He was in for the long haul --
an aging decathelete competing
in a personal Special olympics
of his own devising, using home
made energy drinks for high octane
fuel to smooth out all the inevitable
bumps on the track, practice fields,
road -- helping him to make time on
both sides of the bar he drank
and worked at as a man possessed,
living the new them song for all
the doomed youth in the game he
was playing for keeps, always hoping
for but never attaining the perfect
score -- though he'd bedded more than
a few plus nines, not that it mattered
what numbers they might have scored on
a judge's card when what he was taking
came under close scrutiny, chemical
analysis, as the primary cause for how
he ended up with a toe tag instead
of a drama queen.