I watched the part time poet
Warble

I watched the part time poet
Drone

I watched the part time poet
Get the **** off his chest

I watched the part time poet
Walk home

I watched the part time poet
Greet his wife

I watched the part time poet
Undress

I watched the part time poet
Pour a glass of wine

I watched the part time poet
De-stress

I watched the part time poet
Close the curtains

I hear the part time poet
Call the feds

The part time poet seems
Somewhat displeased

Officers, there's a part time poet
In my flowers beds

The uniformed man who handles me
Is a part time poet too

Now I can go full time
Got enough on my hands
At least two hundred yards
From you

Holding you between my lips,
I would speak in tongues
And remain forever mute.
Although I need to taste you,
There is rapture in anticipation.
I delay the moment that you yield, then burst,
Your perfect, perfumed juices
Trickling slowly down my chin.

Come child,
Wash those cobwebs from your eyes,
let not that sadness clutter your vision.
I know your mistakes and faults keep you up,
wrap them away, your silk thoughts, and bury them
within you.
We all know misery thrives on sorrow,
and infected hands handle peace.
I see the black veins in your gaunt hands,
and soon we will all know ,
the messenger of mercy, is the heart-
becoming silent, only speaking with a language of tears.
And not even you my dear,
can escape from the sticky entanglement
that murders beauty and passion.

Lukewarm coffee and the cat,
[not my cat, the cat, a cat]
is making the bathroom floor
look cozy.
I haven't had a terrible nightmare or a beautiful dream
in what feels like months, not years, but close.
I have an odd fascination with light bulbs,
sources of light, man-made fountains of brightness.
Not the sun. Rarely the moon.
I don't sleep well.
My father learned about my suicide attempt and thoughts,
because my sister told my mother, and she waved that banner
like a parade float far above my head for everyone to see.
Above his head as a symbol of his failure.
I couldn't pull it down.
Like Snoopy between two large buildings,
it was just inevitable. A matter of time, really.
My past curls up into a ball and waits,
like a cat on vacation from eyes being open.
The eyes open.
We're standing at the kitchen table.
You tell me that it wasn't your fault.
Not directly, of course.
You tell me about my bass teacher,
my ex-girlfriend.
Insinuate I was depressed about these things.
These are the materials to make the cocktail I drank,
full of not bittersweet poisons, but neurotoxins.
You tell me it's not your fault.
Now you don't have to apologize.
You were wrong.
I didn't "discover" these venoms in some fresh cabinet
waiting to be torn down, you, you [expletive],
I grew up next to them,
an IV drip in my jugular,
direct feed to my brain.
[expletive].
[expletive].
I learned how to sincerely love cursing because you wanted
to censor my emotions. I learned to hate myself from you.
I learned how to look at myself as
not enough
because of you. Surely, daddy the great doesn't owe me
an apology, the selfless man who tore us across the country
broke all the way. Surely, if his intentions were noble,
his actions were pure.
Just like Elvis Costello,
your aim was true.
Depression is like trying to find a light in a room
that is full of dark corners.
For a long time, I had no light.
Eyes closed.
I bomb the parades and smile in a hotel window at the chaos
in my mind-world. My other home away from home.
I ask my girlfriend how often someone should think about suicide.
The floats lift higher than the eye should see.
They become a string of dots in an otherwise empty sky.
Amorphous shapes in clear blue water.
Splotches of paint on a manilla canvas.
Something geometric with the fingers,
turned into a sound, then a sample,
then a symphony.
There is no remedy, no cure,
just placebos and snake oils.
Birds chirping.
Silence.

To finish anything in entirety requires a full circle- and goodbye is a picky eater. Good is the pieces of pie fully enjoyed already- don't forget the fingertips good. The ones licked crisp and clean from the plasticware every time. While bye remains the uneaten slices spoiling silence in the kitchen. Crumbs too stubborn to move along, to move anywhere at all. Notice these slices never once greeted each other on a dinner plate- and there is no place for distance during dessert.

2. Goodbye is invisible ink scribbled too quickly for certainty. Proper sendoffs deserve the type of visibility that billboards form. So if you have the audacity to send seven letters my way disguised as our final embrace- I will unwrap your formality, like 5am Christmas morning, and pretend I'm on the naughty list. Hidden messages lack a sense of transparency that leaves only second guessing and farewells should need no crystal *****.
Goodbyes are as good as guesswork- and we are not fortune tellers.

3. Goodbye implies loss or rejection, but well wishes are meant for times
when loss is undeniably absent. Wishing wells bathe separation with good intentions- each copper coin anointed an underwater masterpiece.
While goodbye addresses detachment with partial reflections, splitting waves too strict for clarity. So all I see are the ripples of me spread too thin, the pieces of me scattered in every direction. Goodbye wishes no one well.

4. Goodbye is simply one word. Goodbye is not naturally destructive. Goodbye is no vocal cord villain.
Words are neither inherently good nor bad because we ascribe their significance, but evidence suggests a one word farewell serves innocent ears unjust death sentences.

5. The moment you allow I love you to skydive from your tongue, the word goodbye steals the parachutes mid-launch causing fatal free fall to artificial grass your hands never actually planted. This land is lunar rock rare- desolate when day breaks.
Goodbye is not fertilizer for greener pastures- rather an open invitation for wildfire to reduce the cosmos to ashes.

6. Endings are inevitable and sometimes quite necessary. And I'm not suggesting we prolong foregone conclusions. But our parting words need not necessarily be regrettable. Goodbyes are often stressed in tragic spectacles only designed for Broadway stages and sometimes all that's needed
is a genuine platform to stand on to say something like-- I'll miss you or I'm not ready for this or I can't do this anymore.


7. Goodbye is not a last resort.
Last resorts lead to final destinations you never come home from and you were never home, you were never home for me, you were always goodbye. Goodbye was your one way ticket to paradise, the kingdom your words worshiped and call me a traitor if you must, but the paradox you fundamentally found comfort in is tyranny trapped in one breath.
And that's never been comforting enough for me to believe in, never been real enough for me to hold.
Goodbye is sweet sorrow- one hollow word that makes your smile hurt.
It's solid rain on sunny days, stolen hearts on lay away. It's two syllables that were forced to hold hands that were never ever friends to begin with.
Goodbye is an oxymoron- and it will never justify your warm hello.