It's dark and the light leaks out
like the change in my pockets;
like the blood from her nose;
like knowledge from my head.

And I can feel myself being
  swallowed by this systematic
long dark. I cannot remove myself,
  a gut-worm in the lower-mantle
belly. Watching video-cassettes of
  my birthday. I don't know what
happened to my birthday video.
  I don't know what happened to
my parents or what I did to happen
  to them.

The light leaks, again, and I
choke on my celebri-thoughts;
mentally-******* to the
waves I'd give on a book tour
or studio lot. Talking about some
movie that made some money,
somewhere in Santa Fe or L.A.

The news is channeling my president:
a swollen man that is the physical representation
that a lot of American people are parasitic;
lovers in racism, xenophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia,
homophobia; scared of everything except the 'straight-talking'
magnate they put in office. Not playing president; playing God.

I'd hate to get political, though. I'd hate to ramble on
and on about something I don't know enough about to
**** myself over. I can feel myself picking up steam.
I can feel myself getting redundant but embracing the
bruised ego and poor technique. Loving the entrails
spilling out of the splits of my fingertips;
more beautiful than the brains I bashed on the sidewalks
of old Morgantown. Morgantown, a town so kind you
are gently destroyed by its over-crowded masses,
dying to be different or drunk -- I suppose that's not very
different than most places.

But let's get back to these trees that I haven't even talked about.
Let's get back to the kitchen table with the hollowed hard-drive,
with wires and cords flopping to the sides, like a
gutted spaghetti eater with poor stomach acid.
How terrible. I'll never forgive myself for that last line.

I feel so rudderless. So cynical with a touch of cliche.
I keep pushing back that age for success, thinking
that I have the luxury of choosing. My vocabulary is
limited. My intelligence is assumed; probably a void,
where delusions manifest and asian **** rewinds and plays,
  rewinds and plays.

How they danced
behind tall walls of Pine,
dripped in clear blue
wishing to be seen
like children
pent up in a cage
their eager eyes drooling for sky
small fingers clasped around
chain-link,

their throats held rivers of song
behind steel-

it grew out, touched the invisible compassionate ocean of being,

crying for release
all these bright words
jumping up and down
behind the great wall of Silence.

I looked everywhere for the gatekeeper to free them
but only the blank page laughed
cruelly in my face.

I was in 4th grade
when I met A.J.
he had chestnut hair like his father
that swept down to his chin.

He was a golden gloves boxer
with lightning fast fists.

We played tackle football and shot  pool together.

At night we dressed like infantry men
and dashed out there
in the bushes and trees
mixed up in serious battle.

A.J. would borrow his dad's combat gear,
flashlights , blankets, etc...

His father was a short, skinny guy
who served in Vietnam

a constant, intense blaze seemed to burrow way down deep to his core.

I knew he had been through something Ginormous over there.

He killed a lot of people that much I knew, but he had also witness friends die and after seeing that
something inside him must have snapped,

a rainbow bridge falling forever into a cataclysmic darkness.

I never got too close to him
a clear intuition always warned me
to keep my distance.

There was a rumbling warning in his volcanic eyes that told me
He never really left the jungle.
Some vital part of himself was still over there.

His screams slashing through his dreams
still riveting his head into the swollen firefights that made demons
crawl inside his lonely foxhole.

I always had great respect and admiration for A.J.'s Father.
I used to hear those bloodcurdling screams at night when I slept over.
I have never heard screams like that since.

My heart would pour out to him in those long washing mind wanders
you get when you're cocooned in ripe silences
and
the heavy texture of the world seems to vanish
and all you have is the lonely ripples of quiet, secret love
washing to your shore banks.

I loved the man you see.
Even when he lost it.
Even when he beat A.J. to a pulp once.
His foxhole eyes intoxicated with whiskey & war & loss.

It was then and there in that horrible moment that I seemed to really see
how war had come and carved him up, left him still a prisoner in his cramped one bedroom apartment.

I saw him still fighting
a deadly riot within himself.
His demon still trolling jungles for the enemy, or his lost friends, or Rainbow bridge.

Whatever it was I still think of him today sometimes
wanting to understand him more.

Maybe it was that damaged, haunted look he always had in those more than troubled
quaking eyes of his that always made me wonder what he had seen and did.

What cruel monsters were still digging through this poor man's soul
when he had seen the world darkly end?

What red line of unforgiveness kept tugging at the corners of his blasted out heart?

I still lie awake at night wondering, hoping he has found peace.


© 2014 Scott Lee

"just breathe," they tell you. but no one understands that you can't breathe. your chest has an invisible weight stopping you from taking a breath. you try but it makes it harder. you close your eyes and see all of the thoughts that you hear in your head. you've been like this for so long. "don't worry," they say. but they don't understand that you can do nothing but worry. you can only drown in your own thoughts, unable to swim yourself to safety. your mind is cluttered with "what if's" and, "remember this?" no matter what you do, or how hard you try, you are trapped in this nightmare. the nightmare of your own thoughts. this is is anxiety.
p.m.b. 1:34 am