You
Yes
You

you know what I mean
if you have trouble falling asleep
you must know what I mean
and if you have even greater
trouble waking up and
leaving your bed, joining the cold
world with its cold air and stares
And if you either can't stop eating
or can't stand the thought of food,
if you drink too much and drink alone,
if you have no passion for anything
and the things you once enjoyed feel
pointless and empty and you feel
trapped in a void, forever floating

empty

what you need is not a friend
A friend
many friends
won't fill the void

What you need is a spark
and just enough desire to
keep it from dying

just keep it alive

Someone wise once said
the spark either dies out
or lives long enough to burn down
a whole forest.

I'm convinced he was right

To convince yourself as well
keep that spark alive

just one more day

Keep it alive.

Some people eat dreams

for
breakfast

and
lunch

and
dinner

and it's not even because
they can't afford food

the law forbids him
to walk the streets with the
label of that bottle exposed
but he does anyway

and there's no one to care
enough to report him

he's just another drunkard
getting his fix

also homeless
he wears baggy jeans with lots of
unruly strings around the hems
and the belt
a few holes at the knees
a hole in the shirt
dirt, sweat, something that looks
like blood splotches, something
that's probably just mustard

just another drunkard getting
his fix

but they don't know him for an artist

in the breast pocket of his shirt he holds
two long yellow pencils
and he uses them to make music
for the crows in the park and for the pigeons,
though the pigeons are less impressed by his
performance

he empties the bottle and finds a park
bench and pulls out the long yellow
pencils and starts
drumming into the wood
of the back rest
and the crows gather round to listen
and sometimes the dogs join as well
and sometimes the snails after the rain
but never the people

People like you die young, she said
You don't drink, don't
do drugs, eat healthy, rarely
go out, rarely meet new girls

But you keep on writing, boy, you
keep on writing
and that's enough to outweigh
all the above

You'll see

her back to the world
she stands outside into the
cold
and the snow
made her a white helmet
and shoulder guards
and is now knitting a cape

the deer don't dare come
near her and the
boars too
stay away
and the men agree

this woman's a warrior

better not bother her

there's a blade stuck in
her heart
and you better not reach
to pluck it out if you're
not the one who put it
there

if I knew I was
going to die
tomorrow
would I spend today
writing more
or
saying goodbye to my loved ones?

hardest choice of my life

maybe I'll write my goodbye
in the form of another poem
to make the best of both worlds

the voices said
there's nothing like
waking up deep into the night
and not hearing any voices

and I believed them