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.

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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.

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.

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.