Call me
                                                                                              weird
and tell me


off

but
                                                                                                                      there are some nights
when

if I crawled into
bed
                                                                                              I
                                                                                         would
                                                                                            not                      c
                                                                                          come                  i
                                                                                            out                 t
                                                                                                               e
                                                             and the floor                         n
                                                                                    is                 g
                                                                                        less      a
                                                                                               m

Captain,
suit jacket still beneath your tremor-less hands,
dark jeans as classy as any suit,
blue and black tie radiating calmness,
confidence,
you are our best.

Captain,
how you speak with such careless finesse,
words painting a picture and cutting it to shreds
and repainting it in new light,
you respond and counter questions,
a mongoose attacking an ancient cobra,
striking, winning,
grinning and frowning in perfect rhythm,
ever in control.

Captain,
you cannot win an uphill battle
when your opponent walks on air,
when spectators throw to them machine guns
and step on your fallen spears,
nor can your army
(ever willing, ever ready)
fight without you and your words
drilling through enemy lines,
ever calm,
confident.

Captain,
I have suffered the sting of defeat,
as have we all,
and I have felt the shame and fear
that flows in your blood as you hear the result,
and I see the look in your eyes
as you walk, ever steady, from the room,
foot itching to kick the walls with your radiant deliberateness,
and then you come back,
the look in your eyes one of exhaustion,
for you are tired,
Captain.

Captain,
rest your mind, hold your tongue,
let sleep and lethargy be your's for a day,
for the weekend,
for we all shall,
we, your army, who are tired and worn
from the conflict,
who have come out as victors or failures
and who cry in your dreary shadow.

Captain,
ten days remain till next we fight,
papers as swords and numbers as shields
beneath fire from questions like missiles
which we must deflect,
somehow,
and we will be ready, Captain,
we, your army,
in our suit jackets and clicking heals,
will lead you as you lead us:
to victory.

Please stop apologizing
every time you say something
and the reaction is not immediately what you expected.
Sorry is a stupid word
and doesn't fix anything.
All it does is show us that you meant to say that
and meant for us to know what you meant.

We're all depressed,
a bit insane (especially you),
close to death (especially me),
and trying to not be (Ok, maybe only she is).
Jump away to your fantasy world
or stay here and let me think
or do what I do and put on an act for the good of the order.

But rust and Ruin stop saying sorry
when I like the track you're on
but it's too harsh for you to put to message
though you did so anyway.
Things are not alright;
they never are and no one expects them to be
so we may as well ask
what's the ****** point?

They hear
the touch of hysteria
in my voice,
laugh.
A touch,
no more,
because I hear it,
too,
before the sound even
echoes in my
throat,
and I cut off the sound,
cat quick,
because if I don't
the laugh
will turn to
tears.
There'll be no hiding it,
the hysteria,
then.

Look at the thermometer:
It says 32.
Turn off the heater.
Open a window:
feel the cool influx of air.
Sit back down.
Look at your phone:
Still no response.
You asked why.
Open a new message:
You want to type in some more words.
It's been one hour, forty minutes.
Look at the window:
It's better out there.
Exit the new message.


You had nothing they wanted to hear to say anyway.

I have homework,
lots of homework,
math and history
and research on Cuba
to be memorized by
Friday.
Yet here I am,
on the internet,
scrawling words into
the black leather binder
that I carry around.
And I keep clicking
through the verse on
the screen
in the vain hope
that it can tell me
why.
Why do I keep Facebook
open in another tab,
watching for a pair
to be online simultaneously?
Why do I demand
news from the happy ones
but cringe at every word?
And why are
my pens choosing
now to run
out of ink,
now,
when I most desperately
need to ask the
paper:
Why can't I love?

It's amusing,
really,
how a mind can train itself
to work a
certain way,
can condition itself
against emotions
so that thoughts can run
free
of bothersome sentiments
bogging down
logic.
But,
like an athlete must
occasionally envy
a child dipping french fries
in a chocolate shake,
a mind can grow
weary
of endless analysis,
of careful interactions
and long
for heedless
expression.
But hold!
for there is yet much
to understand before
all that.

Life stared at her
from a place few
dare to venture,
a palace of
purest white,
spires reaching
to a cloudless sky’
grinning in her way,
daring existence to
exceed her domain.
But she,
she danced with
Death about the
headstones in the
sun,
carved names and
dates long forgotten,
and she remembered
them little as anyone,
but focused on her
step, graceful
as in a dream.
Clouds loomed high
above and far off,
echoes of a war
so far off,
yet so near,
and it was a
war born of Life
and Death.
And so Life crouched,
insane in her power
over all and over nothing,
but she
she danced with
Death about the
gravestones
at twilight.