It's as if everything that happens only matters if
you can somehow manage to incorporate it into this
Over-arching narrative
that's meant to be your life.

So that when, and if,
you're hard-pressed to explain it to someone,
you have these convenient bullet points to hit.

"So then that happened, and it was traumatic, so then I did this to deal with it,"

And the scary part is
when you stop caring to weave it all in together, when apathy sets in,
and the actions and events just stay random nonsense.

Just chaos.

And I know there are those who don't struggle with this.
Where everything that happens to them automatically gets justified into this narrative of who they are, and what this is, and they're surrounded by people to explain it all with.

But I am not one of those.

And I can only ever make sense of it after the fact.
Put it into context,
after time has passed.

And I can only ever do it alone.

Old friends fade like sun-filled days
And last no longer than the rain
Which turns to winters waste above

And yet
I grow like trees
Even when I don't want to

And see them go below
To death
Where these memories and away friends go

Into the un, "I do not know" them

Hand-painted ceramic turtles
camouflage in flower beds.
I discern their faces
at a distance.

Blind-sided kaleidoscope-
work fatigue
versus
the first breath of morning
in the heart of April.
I am awake,
half-alert,
inertia bleating in my bones
where is the steady drum of mercy
where is the heart inside my home?

White blossoms fall
like Disney snow
cans of Stella at my feet.
Cardboard boxes  
damp and listless blow
across the lawn
and the silent street.

Amitriptyline
softens the edges.
A chemical reaction
that can never be
the Solution.

Spring is bleeding into colour
before my eyes.
I want to break the skin,
taste something sweet-

too scared that my timing
is not right.

Yes, now that - this - is a mood.

You know, I just realized I've never asked you about you.

How do you spend your days?
What do you do?
What goes through your head when you hear something like this?
Does it put you in a similar mood?
Because I can't help but wonder if we'd get along well,
mellowing out to the same tunes.

Then I remember why I never ask.
Because these moments mean so much.
It's too much to lose.

The best poems avoid eye contact.

Just before you find their rhythm,
catch their direction,
they dance away,
and you watch their beauty,
leaving

you full of wanting
wishing
you knew the steps
hoping
you might keep up
wondering
where they led
leaving
you to tap your feet,
missing
every third or fourth beat,
kidding
yourself that you too
could be sliding, shuffling
and maybe grasping the sway,

but they dance away,
and you stay,
while your eyes follow.