The perseverance of the three legged cat that sleeps in my alley pulls me from my bed each morning.

It stretches its hind leg, taking no time to remember when stretching was a simpler task, minding the gap, yet not feeling empty.

It limps from my alley and continues its search for food, or meaning, or whatever cats search for, and I limp into my bathroom, searching for meaning, but settling for a toothbrush.

I scrub away last night’s dreams of teeth falling from my mouth.  I remember feeling the weight of my off-white molars in my palm, the rough outer edges in numb fascination. I spit the memory into my sink, and rinse.

The kitchen window has a nicer, if less inspirational, view than its brother in my bedroom.  I’ve watched the tree that blocks the city be reborn a dozen times, yet I still feel anticipation every time the brownorangered starts, and I wonder when I’ll grow new leaves.  I grab the sugar bowl from the table for morning coffee, but my grip is weak - I’ve always had trouble holding onto things.  The bowl slips from my fingers, and the ground is covered with porcelain, off-white shards.  I study them, finding a home in the familiarity, and begin to pick up the pieces.

The medication isn’t working.  I’ve tried to explain to the concerned faces, but the weight has worn me to silence.  I tried my best to give the Prozac a shot, but it was like tying a helium balloon to the top of a boulder; the effort makes for a pretty sentiment, but the burden remains unmoved.
The heaviness makes my brain move slowly, my smiles infrequent, turns my words into mumbles.  I try to think about when this all started, to reach through the fuzz of time past and memories lost.  The concerned faces encourage me to look back and find the ‘why’, to find the big bang of the world that I carry upon my shoulders.  
I remember flashes and feelings, times where things felt normal, where the apples were shiny and red, crunching between my teeth.  There was a time when I trusted the less-concerned-at-the-time faces to help me carry the weight, which used to be far less heavy, the balloon rather than the boulder.  However, no matter how hard I try, I cannot pinpoint the precise time when the heaviness became solely my own.
The medication isn’t working, but there is some part of me that keeps searching for that Heracles drug that’s going to build my pillars again, that’s finally going to help me stand up straight.  Maybe it’s hope, maybe it’s actually the Prozac, afterall - hell, maybe it’s just naivety - but I’m going to keep trying, and for now, that has to be enough.

i am the insomniac's day dream
but i am tired of carrying your bags, too
i am exhausted from cradling your face, shushing and swaying and singing lullabies
whispering secrets kept out of apathy
deaf ears and blind eyes and scrambled brain - sunny side up at three in the morning
i am so tired that all i want to do is run and jump and yell and ask why things happen the way that they happen
who set all this up and what do they want from me
what are those noiseless sounds that fill a dark room
why did you take my charles bukowski book when you left
fingerless hands paw at the missing pages
but there isn't anything there, not anymore

"what makes you feel empowered?" "i don't know"
green spirals filled the gap in our noises
i took another drink and made profound eye contact with the ****** mary
her frozen, flickering lips asked me questions i couldn't remember the answers to
are you feeling paranoid yet?
how many times have you been in love?
why does walmart sell religious memorabilia at such a reasonable price?
i ignored her, as i have since i was seventeen, so i'm sure she was used to it by now
i took another drink and smiled as she grabbed my hand and he laughed and she sang and they talked over one another about things that we would forget tomorrow
things that seemed crucial to say right now before the moment slipped away
i let them talk and tried to absorb everything about this small, dysfunctional powwow that filled my heart to its very brim
every part of the circle was so crucial, every word and laugh and sigh and sip so necessary for its completion that i was utterly overwhelmed by my very luck to be alive in a time and place where it existed
i've never felt that way before
when i walked home, the morning was early and damp and covered in the darkest dark i've ever experienced
i saw a candle flickering in a window three stories up like a (relatively speaking) modern day northern star
i turned off my flashlight and walked home in silence, basking in the green glow in the wake of fear and love and pain and joy and destruction

red and yellow stripes
floral skirt
kleenex in the floor of her car
she steps outside for some air
very aware of her lungs in this moment
everyone talks in hushed voices
for fear of waking the dead
they call it senseless
rumors whispered to grieving ears by the funeral home entrance
poison injected into a mournful vein
my lungs are moving but there is no air here
there is no air in her
a soulless visitation to track marked arms
there’s nothing here but over-perfumed vases of silk flowers
i want to tell her how sorry i am
but i cannot turn around
i cannot understand how people stand in a circle and cry together
i cannot understand showing your heart so openly to near strangers
(hyperventilating in the car like a real ((dysfunctional)) person)
it is so hard to understand a love that scars you
these chairs are too comfortable
these conversations too casual
the sky is too blue, your lips are too blue
twenty eight years of fighting
a war against your own brain
it’s so unclear
if this is winning
or losing

consider the bee, warbling its bass tune of honey and flora and the pursuit of happiness about the sweet ****** sphere
i do not know how long it (i) has been (will be) here
i wish you would shake me to my core, my past tense boy, pomegranate juice dripping down your chin
i wipe it away with my thumb, sticky with longing
suddenly you are so tall, so far out of reach, so very yesterday and not at all tomorrow
dali was pulled from his dream or perhaps nightmare or perhaps a purgatory of the two
the hair on his arms rose like a spectre from its grave
she who shook him to his core haunted his sleeping moments, threatened to be swallowed whole by the fish
she saw a gun under the bed when she was six and never really felt safe since
danger hides under beds and in closets and in acrylic paint
“how surreal” i’m sure he said, rubbing sleep from his eyes
i bet it made him laugh, too