Moments

Moments, like images of autumn
appear in my mind and float away as easily
as the leaves the cross my path from trees
who choose to undress together.
None of them get to live.
I crush them all, purposefully grind them
into indistinguishable mush,
not even the brilliant ones, beautiful small
explosions of toxic colors and summer sunsets
are salvaged from my wrath,
and I do it singly to hear their spines crack.

And they never saw me coming,
did not have time to tell the next one to vanish--
could not tuck their children in to cupboards,
could not button their pants,
it was like a bandit kicking in the door,
the silhouette of someone in a long coat
with a rifle.

These moments, I destroy them all
cohesive ideas that string together a life
cause disheartening head holding,
eye closing, sighs--
A sigh that stops my day,
consciously forcing back tears,
building walls, not talking to friends,
wanting my loneliness so that I could be unaware,
of my events.

So I kill them,
wait for it to pass like autumn into winter,
and look woefully and proudly at the carnage.
Who is safe? The newspapers would scream,
Not one of you with your memories.

Predestination Turned Determination

Learning to write again after an intermission with your identity,
is similar to searching for God after years of willingly
holding Satan’s tailcoats--

During this period of time, you’re made to suffer
gathering pieces of grace alone in the sparse woods,
knowing well it doesn't grow here, but this is where
he plunked you and it's a humiliating trick,
hoping to piece something together
that might look like holiness,
that might resemble being whole.

Suddenly you’re a walking lesson, for all of those people
the ones who might toy around with losing themselves,
giving up their gifts, their passions, devotions, faith--
they stumble past your naïve and gaping mouthed,
generally a finger protruding through the slobbery hole,

So what? They see you hanging strangely, uncomfortable
your neck not quite broken, your feet tingling with the explosion of blood,
so what they they’re watching you struggle for life--
God’s surely around the corner isn’t he,
A technician in this masquerade, this research study?
The problem is that he told me the safe word when I can back to him,
when I sat down and picked up my pen,
but I refuse to say it to him,
to show him the words that would make him look on me like a sick child,
I‘m the one floundering here, I‘m the one strung up and fucked wide open--

Theologically, the safe words are, “Forgive me.”
But I don’t beg,
and I’ll be God damned if I’m alive come morning.

The Woman Who Works In The Bar

Your beauty will run out, but you don’t even know it.
You like coming back to the bar you drank at for years
encouraging your raging alcoholism,
the sobers thought you were such a drag,
but you were the life of the scene with the liquor--
it’s just like walking in that old bar again,
faces lighting up as they turn to look at you
your innards turning soft as you feel recognized
and recognized
and recognized again.
Of course, you’d come back
for this type of love, you’d do anything.

You say, “If I quit drinking and just come up missing,
what will they do without me?”
And we pretend that they’d miss you,
imagine situations where they’d talk about what a great man you were,
how they wish they could slap a five down for one more drink for you,
offer you the warmest stool with the yellow coosh oozing out the side,
we pretend, because it feels just as good as the numbness from a shot,
“I better go back one more time, you know--just to tell them I won’t be back.”

I comply because I don’t know any better,
and in the morning, you’re asleep in the bar waiting for drinks to be served
for you, a tweed coated party with patches on the elbow,
a gentle glow from the window sills kind of get together--

“Why do the dry ones hate me so much?” You ask, one night
you managed to stagger home and these were the words
that spilled with drool from your lips as you collapsed,
“What did I do to make them be so sad to me?”
I felt for you then, held you like a child, pulled you close,
Told you that they just didn’t understand your world,
and we pretended that they were always at your door
knocking to come in and just have a mug of beer,
we fabricated and image that they just didn’t know how to fit in
that they were search for the answer from you,
“I’d let them in,” you say fading out, aspiration so shallow,
“I’d always let them in, and I’d always buy them…..”
breathing, breathing, “…..another drink.”

How cold they were not to love you back when you needed it,
I know, you’re a drunk--but you were so naïve and trusting
and you gave your feelings like tiny little presents to people
who slid them away in their coat pockets to not remember later
and let them wash so recklessly--
How cold they were,

Let’s just get your jacket on you, baby
I can’t stand to see you shaking like this,
C’mon, I’ll walk with you--
“You’ll walk with me?!” Your face lights up,
“Yeah, we’re going to get you there safely tonight,
and they’re all there waiting for your arrival,
reminiscing about your stories, thinking of what you’ll tell them tonight,
the little candles on the tables were just lit, and I think they’ve swept the floor
we’re going to make sure you get there alright--
C’mon baby.”
My arm around your waste, yours around my shoulders--trying to stay steady
I think that this is exactly how lovers walk, so passionately intertwined

In front of the bar I open the door and heavy lidded bastards regard you,
dropping greasy shot glasses, heads hitting counter tops
candles smoking black as wicks drown in their own wax,
you interact with the smog in the bar so graciously, my love
This is exactly how it is to be in love, a sickly waste land constructed
and decorated into a delicate, heart warming dream.

I sit to the side and try not to cry, for every sweet and gentle lost boy
and I just wait for the next man who needs a lover,
and a vision to last the rest of the night.

Give Up

There's a headache growing tentacles
through the skull above my eyes,
spreading nausea down my neck,

I've gotten past the stage
rendering me unable to eat;
missing that as I realize the next step
is hardening arteries, syncopating rhythms
between my upper and lower heart,

but realizing although it works separately
it's all one
heart

and even though I'm home right now,
that doesn't mean I won't stumble out that door
and across this state
to be with the ocean,

doesn't mean I won't give up, won't give up
because my nerves are so tight right now,
you could play a song sounding something like
electricution;

doesn't mean that I don't want to run either
singing lullabies to myself about searching for loneliness
even though, I couldn't stand seven days without you
sighing gusts of wind to move everyone so that I can just be,

There was a time when I was a solitary lightbulb
hanging, austere, in a room with no purpose.
There was a time when I was okay with that.