liked you better

liked you better
when you strung out,
when you weren’t
all high & mightyn’
on top of the world
(like you seem to think
you are now)---
yup, certainly liked you
better when your life was
in wreckage, when,
more like the reality you lived
less like a fantasy &
didn’t go to the store to
buy that can of white paint for
your picket fence &
when you were liked better,
you didn’t chatter all the time
clouding those the conversations
of others round you,
as well as those inside your own
fragmented skull---
yes, have to say i liked you better
when you were down & out &
distraught, than bundled up in
whatever illusion
you are treading water in
now.