Journal: Entry 1.

It hurts more to see the past in lively motion, 
not just a photo 
or from passive memory- 
but from a flickering film;
life looks forward
through the frame 

and not regret,
but shame
clouds into my blood.

Feelings I've long since felt,
feelings I've done my best to compact and bury,


resurface

and, for a moment,

I feel terribly, blindingly
whole.

Afterthought

There is something irresistable

about loving an idea and only and idea.

We are captivated by the past 

and the paths that we never walked.

Sometimes, without knowing, head wins over heart

and we watch passively, as 

love fades 

and reality grows.

We will love as we are expected to 

we will think about the hard fought dreams

of our youth's persistence 

as if they were only the fanciful, 

flickering, frames 

of someone else's home movie.

We all sit in the dark sometimes,

contemplating the features within the shadow of a face 

not yet illuminated in our foyers mirror.

There,

below,

in a porcelain tray

are the keys to cars and 

houses, alongside

the invitations to relatives' weddings 

and birthday parties for neighbors' children-

a whole reality never once dreamt as a child,

an unwelcome truth,

a bitter pill tasting eerily similar to the taste in the back of our mouths

when the first step down the wrong avenue was taken

Staring back in every reflection is the dark outline 

of someone,

perhaps,

we should have been.

When did we lose ourselves 

to the other side of the mirror?

Seed

A far off storm

ripples through the moist

night.

Laying there,

eyes moving beneath taught lids,

my muscles tense as

a stiffness spreads like moist cobwebs

just beneath my skin.

Then, just as

an anesthetic failure on the operating table-

my eyes peel wide with silent panic,

a warm tear falls down my temple;

my tongue is cotton, and

I cannot cry out.

It's not a masked

killer, or an oily, 

tentacled monster that chases me-

but the rotten seed of a plant

sewn from love and left to the frost,

many years before.

We are all each other's

nagging feelings.

They say our ears turn red 

when thoughtful people remember; but

cold fright is more accurate

tale as

a shadow slithers 

across my grave.

Long hours I've spent with ghosts;

judging, questioning,

continuing ill-fated affairs and

imagining unwritten romance.

All the grudges held 

out of unfounded, misplaced pride

and embittered in the fires of 

childish haste;

fall back, turning around

and sour only myself.

All of these things are chasing me

and every moment I lay calm,

resigned to deep dreams-

she finds me,

she hugs me,

and I wake 

screaming.

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Concerning the Blank

One would think
a crisp, white plain
broken only with lines
of blue
and red
and sometimes a blinking 
cursor
would be met
with the spoils of prior
contemplation,
great things brewed 
in grey matter tea.
One should be reminded of
great masters
poised fingers over
worn keys;
thundering concertos to come.
Yet the perceived
masterpiece simply sits
behind otherworldly tension.

Dust tends to gather in these moments
tumbleweeds crisscrossing
reminding us of our own stillness
glasses fog, smudged fingerprints appear
temple screws mysteriously
unscrew themselves
and housework becomes an
exotic
sensual
distraction.

Paper cuts become a
dangerous
reality.

For all the notes that came before;
in showers,
cars,
unromantic dates,
and long,
lonely walks;
only the lost bits 
of grocery lists remain
the twice forgotten red onion
remains in the miserable
forefront
of your 
rotting,
prehistoric
brain.

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Untitiled

The mad ones

drink in dark, unmemorable bars

avoiding everyone

but secretly

hoping for their own reflections to walk out

from behind the frosted glass, behind

the liquor bottles and beer neon;

someone to talk to 

someone to hate

more than their last great love.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

Rubber Duck

What good is pain 
if we can't sit in it
from time to time?


Sometimes we need to fire up
the old, brown and pink seventies
spa tub and get a little drunk while
watching our past
swirl about our bloody,
bruised bodies
like so much flat champagne.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

No Longer Dreaming

I've never feared the sea;
not even as it bubbled and
swirled around
my little island.


I've always seen far away lights-
signs of other islands or
reminders of ships that have past
or have yet to.


I watch the fish as they shimmer and 
dance in the cloudy water.
They seem fascinated with the delicate 
far off 
lights.


But I know better.


For I fear the lights more than the sea.

The One

One line
one direction:
tequila to hangover,
cause and then on
to effect.


No time machines, and
not enough forgiveness
to go around.


We all miss what never was
though we're supposed to know
what perfection was-
even before it shines clear in the
rear view mirror.


The past was, and remains all smokey eyes
and cringe-worthy first time drinks-
there's always that one, blinking
almost, burnt out filament
in the nasty bathroom
where we questioned everything the first time.


It all looks so perfect now.


We hate ourselves often;
catholic guilt if we're catholic
regret if we fall under the banner of
'everyone else'.


Nothing can be said
nothing can be done
but hope,
hope
to bump gently
on the shoulder of the future,


smile,


and carry on, 
where we once were.

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Walking through a darkened house

There is a moment in sleeplessness that I find myself;

when the flirting drowsiness has faded and the wretched, twitching mania has 

subsided.

I stop feeling my own fingernails clawing over me,
I stop looking for the next sign of worth,

I stop cursing the birds flight and the dogs life of ease

and I stop dreading the silence of each darkened room

as I creak among the floorboards.

When I've stopped trying to find-

I am found.

I am found in the dark with eyes closed;

records spread out- carefully chosen albums of regret and triumph;
but none on the player.

I am found among

piles of notes straightened into yellow towers,
all of them scribbled with great intent

though, none worth remembering.

I'm found when the rain taps a paltry 'hello' at 5 am,
hovers momentarily over this particular address,
then washes away a moment later,
unamused.

I am found when, all at once, I feel the warmth of words in my heart, and they
pour like blood through my outstretched fingers
and pool together in front of me.

I am found when my hands stop shaking and my

eyes begin to see white dots bobbing in the haze of a mew morning.

I am found when I think of you.

I am found for that one moment

when I forget myself.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

Staring Back at the Dark.

These walls around me are so tall

but my nightmares persist;

an uneasy existence with myself remains

always.

The streets in my head

all wander about;

knotting together 

in the wrong end of town-

but my feet stay firmly, 

horribly, 

helplessly

in the right.

These days of endless summer,

these days of passing worry

are enough to keep my stomach

seeped in it's own blood;

it seems to clearly know,

what I've only been able to guess at.

Each moment falls away

and the rainfall gauge creeps along;

filling, and climbing towards 

nothing new,

nothing more,

nothing gained and

nothing spent.

I remember the idea of the road

the wind

the sun

the scrapes and bruises

forgetting to brush your teeth in dirty motels and

opening your eyes under the waves of a brand new coast.

Heaven exists in closed eyes

and bloody knees.

It seems my scars are fading

exactly when I want them to be raw-

pinned on medallions

of mistakes proudly made

moving towards 

something,

anything.

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Untitled

I cannot stand the sight of their deaths.


Nights, interrupted with sweat and a chest of pain,
a towel down to soak it all up; then
sleeping again, but not on yellow-ringed sheets but unaware,
on bathroom tile and a time-flattened rug-
each morning realizing a phantom bender,
devoid of a single drink from the night before.


They are all older in the great scheme but younger in my mind;
they are forefathers, mothers, and siblings.


I hope to lose all of my warmth before then
for my veins could not stand the chill
my mind not take the jolt
and my head would lose the world in a dizzying instant.


Their deaths are ahead of me, always,
my life is looming over them and
I curse each time, at the youth wasted on self;
the same self so occupied with the right words
and the selfish pursuit of grey temples.


They will always be in heroic scale from
where I choose to stand,


and


as I stare upward and watch them flourish-
their lives rich, and their hard work realized-
I conceptualize my own mortality
and am unwillingly reminded of theirs.


Then, all at once, I jerk awake once more-
the rug impressed on my cheek,
and the lines of tile, marked red on my side.


I remain still, and listen
as a clear pool of shame
drips,
escaping my coward's brow.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.