Life is made up of
pit stops filled with
people you knew.
Long stretches of road
between, empty of all
but your own company
until you stop again
and meet new people.
You stay with them
for a time but eventually
all relationships end,
even the ones we
promised each other
were forever.
Maybe especially those.
We make promises of
time we cannot live
long enough to fulfill
with the casual unkindness
of a natural disaster,
mercurial as a sudden
daylight summer storm.
And so we bow, hand in hand,
with the current round
of players fretting the stage
with us, or else slip away
with an Irish Goodbye
in spite of what we always
said we had meant to each other.
Still, we go back to that
dusty, lonesome stretch
of jagged road and head for
distant horizons.
And we feel bad,
maybe, in measured hours,
but mostly not at all.
Life moves on and
we find this sitcom's
cast of characters from
school or various jobs
replaced by the next
group from school or work.
Group chats will one
day go inactive and
the constant chirp of
digital friendship will
be as silent as a confession
of teenage affection caught in the
back of a young man's throat.
Some days we'll hear a
familiar laugh or see
a once discussed TV show
and it'll draw it out:
we'll have moments
when we miss the days
when...
But, don't let yourself
dangle when you hang up
on those thoughts,
because it may be sad
when one thing dies
but it isn't really the end.
Nothing is ever really
The End.

Give me a fast horse
and dark purpose
and watch as I burn
down the night time sky.
I'll pull sack cloth
across the cosmos
darkening the starlight
and bringing the evening to a hue
closer resembling pitch.
I'll take a fireplace poker
from it's rest and raise it up
and poke holes to
let the light through.
I'll make new constellations
of pin ****** and let
you name each and every one.
I will always be here
as long as you never leave.
I'll always be true
so long as you always believe.
No one will ever hurt you
my love
while I'm here and alive.
I'll love you until it hurts
until neither of us can survive.
I'll love you in absence of light
and long after hope has died.
Give me a fast horse
and dark purpose
and I'll chase the dark from the skies
I'll track it to whatever dim cave
in which it then hides
and bring light to a world
full of outrageous lies.
And if you'll search me out
'neath that bridge on the outskirts
of our lonely, haunted town
I'll love you for always
for as long as I'm around.
I don't know if lost things
can heal completely once found
but I've been lost for so long
in such a state that I would
gift you forever for a song.
A sweet deal, should you
love me back
a tad massive in scale, I guess,
but serious as a heart attack.
Give me a fast horse
and dark purpose
my love
and nothing will save me
from the great waiting fall.
But, I'll go down with a smile,
I've been so alone, afterall.
Give me a fast horse
and dark purpose
a smile, a working of the jaw,
a hangup and an intractable law.
I have a loss, a win, a draw.
One ounce a hope my fatal flaw.
Give me dark purpose
and a way out of here.
Without you I'm empty of cheer.
An escape rope, to make myself clear
I've somewhere to be, somewhere I fear.
Give me a fast horse
and by evening I'll be long gone.
The curtain can close, finally drawn
around nights wasted in endless hold on
before the breaking light of dawn.

The past is like a hangover
memory in my skull.
Barely remembered and sorted
in headachey chaos.
I don't recall, in detail or
even in any semblance of order,
the events of my youth.
I know this or that thing happened,
but when it happened in the
sequence alludes me.
I don't remember where my
head was or the other worries
I had the night we were over
or the day we began.
I can't picture giving you
a rose and dancing in the
hallway of our workplace.
I know it happened, you told
me it did.
I don't remeber tying your shoes
for you and imparting any
wisdom, poor or great, but
you told me all about it.
You said I brushed the hair
from your eyes before I really
saw you for the first time
and that my doing that made
you really see me.
The events, kiddo, gone like
smoke on a breezy summer
afternoon by the ocean,
but the feelings I'll always
recall the emotions of the times.
I remember feeling things bigger
and stronger than I ever had
or have felt since.
The sequence is meaningless
but the emotions meant everything
to me back then, and they have
all been shadows of those feelings since.
And that's good, that's exactly how
it should be, after all.
Yesterdays were for dreaming
of tomorrows, todays are for
thinking about yesterdays
and tomorrows may never come,
but I'll still have loved you all
as best as I could with the
limited powers that I have.
So, here's to the feelings we
left in yesterdays in the dim hope
that they'd help shape today.
And here, raise your glass higher,
Here is to tomorrow,
I know we ****** it all up
so, let's hope it never comes,
or arrives very gently
and does little to worsen
our poor headaches.

Let's make a list of all
the things I've failed to be.
We'll start with successful
and work back toward infinity.
If wasted potential could
be shaped like stone or clay
I'd be a pit fit as a source
that'd last until the very last day.
From the very bottom
I've scaled toward the middle
and along the way fallen
in stature and grace, just a little.
But still I'm on the front lines
fighting for the American dream
my hours consumed by employers
my words lost in the scream.
I got broken bones rattling through
me that never quiet properly set
I'll probably die of blood poisoning
or some other kinda self neglect.
I'm supposed to follow up on conditions
but can't afford to lose the day
I'm supposed to love myself better
but no one else ever did, anyway.
I'm not supposed to write these words
men shouldn't burden with complaints.
I'm just supposed to shut up
don't tug on these cumbersome restraints.
I know you want me to prize myself
more than I really try or do.
You guys want me to love myself
but I only ever learned how to love you.
I've taken all you see and love in me
and I've put them in this letter.
I'd mail it to myself today,
but maybe tomorrow is better.

Commands and demands shouted
down bloodlines in dead languages
carrying an urgency matched
in intensity only by the obscurity
of the meaning lost on me.
I've been a distant third since
before anyone else was in the race,
measured, forgotten, denied
easy to ignore or to replace.
Love and acceptance always seemed
the unattainable golden ring
born in the hands of others
but just beyond my own reach
I'd make my way without help
or affection. Fixated on fighting
the monsters of the dark
that everyone else had light enough
to keep away, until the same
light inside you also seemed
to keep me at bay.
Without the shared warmth
of the crowd I grew used to
breathing smoke as the venom
of jealousy in my stomach
bubbled and burned away.
Snapping loose the hanging
icicle barbs around my heart
became a task too great
and now the path in is covered
by a near impenetrable gate.
I don't know what others feel
they are owed, by virtue of
being born into this place,
but I've learned to expect nothing
because when I tried to
give you my love
Nothing is what you gave.
There are echoes of you
in my pumping blood
but you've hidden your heat
from me.
You've filled all around you
with what you have and
what they'll stand to have you be
but you've taken in incremented
turns from me.
Leaving me hard, perhaps,
but also empty by degree.

When it's over will tired
bones rest below the surface
in dry dirt and clay or
will they be compelled, once more,
to rise with the dawn on
forever unfinished work?
And which would we prefer?
Because tired and beaten
is a scene we've rushed toward
eternal silence to be done with
but the sacrifice is tomorrow
and tomorrow and tomorrow.
And sure, trudging uphill
through pain filled rooms
with congealed blood pushing
in our viens is hard
but the sun may still rise
on the sweat of your brow.
And when it's over will
there still be love?
Will there still be need?
And what of the stiffness in
our backs and the sharp
stabbing looseness in our knees?
When the time comes do
we just stop or is there some
idea shared of what might
come next?
Would that be tragic or
would it be best?
When it's finally all over
will they wake in mourning
and live in slowly healing
lament?
And will he, after looking
at the total collection of
my life's works and worth
still respect me in the morning?

Leave it to Linklater films
to figure out what life is
we're rivers of blood seperated
forever from the greater ocean
we are constantly told we're
supposed to be a part of
and we walk around this
spinning ball of dust
and historically significant bones
wondering why we feel so
******* alone all the time.
On a sub-molecular level our
surface bends against the
surface of all other things
meaning, on a quantum level,
we never actually touch each other.
We sort of repel, in fact.
Maybe that's why we try so hard
to write ourselves into each other.
Can you feel me, in these words?
Do they stir in you the same
things I feel them move inside of me?
In this way, with text and grammar,
syntax and purpling context,
do you feel the bumps raise on
your flesh almost as if in
anticipation of the moment,
after the strings have swelled
and a valley of sweet percusive
harmonies have laid bare the
beating heart of the piece
you know a crash of cymbals must
be on the way?
Does hair stand on end on
the back of your neck when
you read, like a whisper in your
ear of late summer time regret
for feelings left unsaid or said
only in jest as the days grow shorter
and the time for action disappears,
at the words, in sequence, that
I've chosen to seranade you with?

Leave it to folk bands to figure
out what love is.
You and I are running at a sprint
against the wind toward the eternal
tomorrow and we've got no
idea how to engage the brakes.
We're on Barry's cosmic treadmill
without a clean understanding
of escape velocity that we need
to get off and go back.
Can we go back?
And inside our clothes
they will find only regret and
our time smoothed bones.
I'm workin' on it
I swear I am.
After walking through a lifetime
of doors it becomes hard to look
at how few are still open
and suicidal, in a sense,
to open many of them back up.
We're very near the top
in this endless climb.
This will not be a satisfying conclusion,
just a landing between flights of stairs.