I saw you
Through the screen
On that second
Why did I think
It was meant to be

Now read from bottom to top.

So many poems
and stories
have gone unwritten
due to fear of not being good enough

When the agony
of dawn awakens
me.
I think of
drinking
***** to arouse
the muse from
her slumber.
But I don't;
instead, I slam
three cups of
coffee, hoping to
jolt the old
***** from her
lethargy.
If the caffeine
doesn't do the trick,
I grab a few of
our favorites:
Bukowski,
Neruda,
and Dylan Thomas.
I pace the floor
and read out loud.
Eventually, I feel her
begin to stir.
I yell,
"Is your fickle *** ready to work?"
And then the real day begins.
I know this sounds crazy,
but the muse and I
wouldn't have it any
other way.

Nostrils flare
You have a job.
That pill was meant to feel normal.
That collars tight.
Tight right?
Its too tight for a tie.

I enter a voiceless Forrest
quiet
           as after ******

it awaits a wind
                     to disturb
its brooks
          to run full babble
and the creatures
                 to muster bravery
and reveal themselves

Caught unawares
I feel I may have embarrassed it
I shall return later for my walk

Father used his fists
a lot
Though never on the kids

On the walls
and the furniture
and the doors
and the mailbox
and the fence
and the neighbors
and random people on the street
and strangers in the bar
and a few times the poor dog
and one time on mother

He was the childhood’s
villain

To defeat him one had
to become a hero

and becoming a hero
took time

And today
after all this time
the villain of childhood
was dead

He died at the hands of
some other character,
a neutral one

A cop who told him to
drop to the ground
and father didn’t
so he got shot

That was it
The end of his saga

Utterly unsatisfactory
anticlimactic
disappointing
just bad

There was no final showdown
between hero and villain

because those things
only happen in
childhood
and childhood had ended a
long time ago