MOMMY DEAREST*
sadly,
you killed everyone in your head
including the loving person i knew,
growing up with a best friend
that ended up being my mother,
and the past twelve years i watched
as you died and the heartbreak
you caused all who loved you
and by denying the help they gave you
by denying the help you needed
to accept reality the way *we have to,
and so as you've killed us all
and isolated yourself to the point
that i'd had to write your eulogy,
for you couldn't accept your life's detachment
from everyone, ties you severed yourself,
and that me being the only one left
left me with no choice
but to bury you six feet deeper
than the demons i created on my own
because I can't take care of yours too
in the fifth circle of hell
after I've escaped purgatory senses
and discovered my freedom's as a man.

we can't stop our hearts from beating,
our lungs from breathing, so why
try and stop our minds from thinking?
they can destroy us once they're
overclocked and overloaded,
over-simplifying complicated situations.
we still try to forget ourselves,
and how they're always there,
but it's inevitable, atomic,
how time moves us, but we cannot move time,
only by falsifying hands tracking
secondary measurements, little ticks
that eventually drive us mad.
not with anger, but with sadness,
time slips, and we slip with it
back to innocence, perseverance ensues,
and we soon see how time changes
without our hands in the clock.

you can take your hands off the gears now,
and keep the time set where it was,
and before you know it,
that too shall pass.

we've come all this way
with broken hearts,
found out, and calloused soles,
only to find out
we've all been fooled
as the deceptions of desire take hold.

we'll find no way home,
we've left it all behind,
and we're standing in no-man's-land,
battle rampant across the stars,
stuck here hand-in-hand
with less than a half-thought plan
on how to get back what we need,
where we belong, and how to seed
the minds we've toiled in to make fertile
again.

I'd be okay
to die disappointed.
That way
my hopes never held
weight

one day this vessel i sail
will sink in the ground
and escape this hell

until that day, for now,
see i only do as needed
as i need to somehow

every morning's the same thing:

awaken, fight another hang over,
coffee and advil, water, coffee,
coffee, coffee, coffee, shower,
then work.  forget why i'm here,
remember who i am,
change subjects, mindsets,
did i change my underwear?
oh, i forgot about that shower.
did i change my life?
i forgot to start that, again.

i felt the reluctance
in your movements,
in your touch,
in your hair and fingernails.

i heard reluctance
in your voice,
in your word choices,
in your subtleties and screams.

i knew, reluctantly,
that i wasn't there,
and that, reluctantly,
you were. i'm still not.

I built myself up
in comfort
and in closeness
to the idea
I wouldn't have to feel
the ways I used to.

Now I build up
collections
of books
and others' ideas
to pass times
I can't comfort myself

with the way I am now.