Under uncaring stars
fatigue drowns the worry.
They have no concern
as I finally cannot make
it one more ******* hour.
I fell asleep sitting up,
sick in an unfixable way,
and recalled that once
I touched magic
from a distance
and heard whale song
on still, moonlit waters
and watched storms
roll away from mountain
top retreats leaving both
wreckage and beauty
in their sudden wake.
I heard music in the
car clogged summer street
and felt a subway replicate
a city's heartbeat under my feet.
I watched forever light
dance with smoke in rain
drenched neon midnight gutters
the permanent and the temporary
mixed for a moment that
only I got to see.
And a cynical part of me
knows that I take it all
with me when it's done.
But the stars look down on
our impermanence with
cold dispassion as they burn
for thousands of years and
remind me that just because
it doesn't matter that it
happened doesn't change
the fact that it did and
I am as witness to it as
the stars.

We are dust that woke up
haunted by the places
we've been and the things
we've seen and we often
mistake our trival electrical
misfires for fundamental truths
and lie to one another about
the meaning in the lyrics of
old songs and also inside our
own hesitantly spoken words.
We prize above the science
the feelings we have for others
and the things that they create.
We live in terror of
time running out
even though time running out
is essentially meaningless in
all but a very select number of
grand schemes...
Maybe there is something else
or some other way
or maybe we've always been right.
Who can say?
I wish I had the secrets to give you
to help you through the day
but I'm empty of prediction
and unsure of advice.
I know no science that will
point you proper and right
I know only that I love you
and maybe we'll only have tonight.

The throne sits empty
and absolution is a lie.
We have to live with our
petty sins until we finally die.
Remebering always what we are
and everywhere we've been.
As hollow inside as as bird bones
with convictions brittle as cold tin.
It must be the old catholic in me
looking to find some small grace
but inside these bones there
doesn't seem to be a trace.
I was told we had inside our
hearts a shared spark of the divine.
I've spent a lifetime searching
but I don't feel it inside of mine.
I wish a solution could be found
for all the chaos I cause
but I don't know how to change it
and the attempts give me pause.
Maybe there is no forgivness
that'll fix all that we've broken.
Maybe what we carry with us
is defining and not simply token.
I hope when it's finally over
I'll feel something more than numb
I pray I'll be better or at least
I'll be more than what I've become.

There is blood red bitterness
blooming like a time lapse flower
in cold, hard rivulets
exploding like popcorn
from a kernal with the
same intensity of a sudden
summer squall or a casual
unkindness from a onesided
object of abject obsession.
There is a blood-quick
dull throb at the temples
and a sudden drunken
lack of reasonable inhibition
filled with buzzing curse words
boiling deep in the throat
and deeper in a history of
neglect and pain that ache
to burst through to visit
rewards of anguish.
There is fire and then there
is calm and then, finally,
there is regret.

I think we waste lifetimes
decoding the lies of purpose
and maybe forget to fill
our mouths and stomachs
while the food is still out.
I think we leave empty
cupboards and memories
that we should fill up or
even just shout about.
I don't think it's revolutionary
to recognize these failings and faults
but maybe it's all the more tragic
that we all seem to know
but still just listen to the music
when we should join
together and waltz.

I've spent a lifetime with
first draft mentality.
Growing without purpose
and leaning ******* personality.
There has been very little
long-term format or structure
just walls built too hasty to
hold back floods and only rupture.
I think with a second pass
there are things I could get right
I think with a little care
there are battles I wouldn't fight.
The arrogance of refusing
to rewrite my singular voice!
The foolishness to pretend
there wasn't always a choice.
I was so worried about being
paralyzed by worthless indecision
that I executed a lifetime of
kneejerks with no revision.

I believe in love now,
in ways I couldn't explain
to myself as a younger man.
I can just about wrap my
head around the ending,
at least I think I can.

We're not made to suffer,
even if it seems that's
what's most likely to be true.
We're made to come out
the other side limping but
knowing what to do.

I don't understand forever
because I don't think any
of us ever really can or will.
But I'm familiar with right now
and what it means to love you
not for forever but still.