These ******* people
I surround myself with
make it impossible
to enjoy the
allure of death.

So I guess I'm cursed
to keep on living.

Thanks a lot.

******* *******.

Those little white bottles
to help you smile.

The long drives to work
and home again.

You were beautiful
and miserable then.

It's easy to forget
the miserable part
when looking back.

It's easier to forget
everything about you.

But my dreams
will always remember.

Was that bench comfortable
beside the manufactured creek?
We never even saw it
for what it was;
an oft-tended golf course.

For us it was freedom,
it was cooperative solitude.
It was an infinite bed of
manicured grass to jump on.

In regards to the rest of the world,
we were gone.
We were free.
Free. Flee.

You sat there looking out on the water,
right hand tucking that pesky
strand of hair behind
your delicate ear.

I remember my mouth watering
looking at your earlobe.
I remember the breeze
gracing me with you.

The swallows flew in inverse arches,
just grazing the glassy surface.
Shattering and sending ripples
everywhere.

You still sit there in this picture.
A flower frozen in resin,
kept pure of oxidation.

I'm still there too, just...
behind the camera.

Forever destined to only look at you.

Even now, all these years later.

Destined to look,
and to remember.

Perpetual intoxication is a peninsula
on which your psyche stands and
mindlessly gazes out at the water to watch
your body slowly drown in the sea.

When the only options are
a sober swim back to the shore
or merely persisting in your mindless gaze,
it's easy to forget that there's a choice at all.

Whispers in my ear,
memories like ghosts.


Mustn't be present.


Anything to not
be present here.
To not be present
anywhere,
anytime.

Fill up my eyes with monitors,
my ears with buds.
Fill up my mind,
brimming with brandy.
Keep smiling,
maintain an IV drip
of distractions.
Keep laughing.
Keep on
keeping on.

Walls mustn't falter,
I must not be present.
Not now.
Not ever.

When the only functional department left
is the IRS,
then the only option we have left
is to stop paying.

He's clocking out, climbing into his car.
He can do both things at once,
the time clock is just an app on his phone.
These days, he guesses, most everything
is just an app on the phone.

Phone. We still call it that.
Wonder how many people
make calls these days at all?
He laughs quietly to himself
and starts the engine,
shifts into first,
slips the clutch,
and he's on the road.

He passes run down storefronts
long abandoned, old restaurants
with four or five different names
glued to the facade. Nothing lasts here.

The diner still runs though,
a well oiled machine.
Maybe I'll eat there tonight
he says to himself.
Breakfast for dinner, eggs and bacon.
Sounds good.

Maybe he'll stay there for six hours.
Drinking coffee,
talking to locals.
Maybe he won't.
Maybe he'll take the long way home
and hit the pub for wings.
Maybe he won't though.
No matter what he ends up doing
he's always satisfied having the options.

It's not the places I go to waste my time,
the thought comes to him suddenly,
it's the option of being able to waste it
wherever and whenever I want.
That's what I really love.

He smiles a slight grin,
eyes full of sunset.
His stomach grumbles,
hits a downshift as he steps on the gas,
and cruises off into the horizon.
It may not be a particularly exciting
or overly successful life, but
one thing that's for certain is that
he'll be happy to do it all over again
tomorrow.