He loved her, of course.
But more important than that,
better than that,
He chose her.
Day after day.
Love is easy.  
Choice: that was the thing.

And, one of the hardest things you can learn,
is to leave what wants to be left,
when it is not your choice to go.
Love.
The feeling is what you own, not the person you've attached it to

Little hands with tiny fingers
reach out like they can see,
over the top off coffee tables
and behind her daddy’s knee.

Little hands with tiny fingers
seem to always find a mystery.
They can slip almost anywhere
little hands should never be.

always grasping always searching
always reaching always learning

Little hands with tiny fingers
touch my heart and set me free.
When the little girl they belong to,
gives her little hands to me.

I am dying
The thought occurs to me every now and then
Jolting my psyche like a bucket of cold water on a sleeping drunk

I just turned 32 this year
I can already feel the cold tendrils of deaths advance
Some days I can even smell its putrid breath on the back of my neck

I’m not dying of anything immediate
No nothing as glamorous as a drug overdose or a gunshot wound
My death more than likely won’t make national news

I am dying
It is a slow and pitiful death
Caused by a lethal mix of age, apathy and neglect

Every day I poison myself a little more
Complex carbohydrates and processed sugars in every meal
Caffeine carcinogens and aspartame to wash the poison down

I can feel my muscle waste away
As I sit 10 hours a day answering the same inane questions
Over and over again to earn the right to what’s left of my meager existence

I am dying
This must be the case because I am certainly not living
At best I am merely surviving, simply continuing to exist

Maybe tomorrow or maybe in 20 years
Even if I quit my job and start an organic vegan diet
Even if I exercise, meditate and confess my sins

I am dying

All alone in a crowded room
don’t think anyone can hear me.
So far away from human touch
despite all these people near me.

I spend the night inside my head
and wonder how they see me.
Could they ever understand
just what it’s like to be me?

Late at night I close my eyes
and I analyze their faces.
Those who play the parts they play
without questioning their places.

Under  lamplight with my pen
I voice my lonely spirit.
So I’ll no longer be alone
if only you should hear it.

Everything in life ends badly, otherwise it would never end.