I shot myself in the foot
Almost a year ago now
but I've only just realized it's still bleeding
I felt it twinge in the fall
felt the welt as it began to fester

but **** I'd thought it'd heal

The trickle is starting to stain
and I'm not quite sure it can be stopped
I'm not quite sure that I don't just have to live with it
I've got a solder and some gauze
but is it too much to ask
that I just get the bullet out?

******* freezing
but what the hell, it's real
ice and chill made by snow and wind and winter
storm rising up for the day, for
the night - the last night
well almost the last night
but who's counting

Tropical paradise sits on the horizon
or more like, lurks in the corner
of my east facing eyes just
to the right I see the jet trails of my
inevitable flight back
home?
thats what dad calls it but he never lived there
why is it my home to him?
does it make it easier to watch me go?
if I'm going home instead of leaving them
alone
well almost

The cold the snow the winter chill locking
us in our beds in our rooms
and we watch the news and laugh 'cause
who does fox 25 think they are anyway?
we've weathered worse man but here you are
sitting on Cedar Point acting like
no one would have thought it would flood
no one thought the rocks would come up
over the wall
that sand hills would be left with no sand
that the waves would crash up over the rooftops
like a cold and raging war
jokes on you, man
we were all in on it

I think I'll take this cold
over tropical paradise
where the cold is locked in with you
a necessity to breathe in the thick
the sagging air that wraps you in a - hug?
nah, straight jacket I say

then why do I miss it when I'm here?
The processed AC clanging through the night
the breathe of two half strangers feet away
******* shorts every day
no shoes, no shirt
no **** man it's hot out

maybe dad's on to something
maybe
may
nah

And won’t you tell me
If you decide you’ve weathered one crack
Too many, after all this time
Don’t you know that I have tape
Or glue if you’d prefer
Though perhaps that won’t help
I know it’s still too much to ask
That I could be all you need and
I know it isn’t your choice
That the splits won’t stay closed
Despite my glue and my passion
I spit out the wrong thing and it’s no stronger
Than a post-it note, just too old that
Wont
Quite
Hold

But I have glue
Or tape if you’d prefer
Though I think you grow tired of me
Pretending that it’s sticking
And even worse that I want you
To pretend with me.

I wonder if I keep restocking
For your sake or for mine
Do I think one day I’ll find the one
That will hold like cement
Maybe think I’ll coat you in thick resin
A case of clear fiberglass that won’t chip
Won’t crack and you’ll be safe forever
Or do I hope only that you believe I will
That you only turn to me
Is it monopoly I seek?
Or absolution.

When the sun rises with my mind
My heart reaches out
To the people
To the places
I cherish, I trust

In joy I am awake
Fingers grasping
Heart beating as the bird’s
I could fly with
If I tried

Alone in bed
In happiness I can’t contest
With book or brush
To balance the lightness of my stomach
With the calm of my soul

Still I know, with the sides of my eye
with the back of my mind
that in the corner
By the sill, by the door is perched
Plastic coated ink
Agent of our ends

Waits for the day to end
Waits for the joy to shuffle off
The moths to settle on
Waits for the sun to set

And on the moon rise of my soul
I fumble, peace spills out to the floor
and blinded in the dusk
Ink and plastic caught in hand
Gives me air as I begin to drown

Pens are for the night
Poetry for misery

Oh they flow, my failures
As a river towards the valley
The defining feature in an otherwise
Sparse, pale
Landscape

Each sin like a raindrop burgeons on
And my river grows
Oh my river flows

Steady as a sieve, leaking o’er my head
In my eyes, soaking into my soil
And I’m flooded, no I cannot breathe
Under the weight of my stream
But ****** if I’ll open my mouth and
Let the water course down my throat
In my lungs

****** if I’ll drown
No I cannot let them find me
Bloated
Sodden
Choked by the rush as it consumes me

But how I want to
How one scream to release me weighs
On my mind heavier than the river I’ve made
A pressure the ocean itself
Could never hope to match

And what a trick it is
What a sick practical humour of the universe
That my river grows
And my river grows
Only as I try to keep my mouth shut

Once upon a time I could say
I never understood why
‘they’
did what they did, what I do
why did we let them dam break?
oh god I know

When luxury is 3 walls,
cement.
Too high to reach, too sheer to climb
Waist high rail with a metal fence
Assuring you don’t,
What?
Jump
Fly
Maybe now I understand.

When release is paper you can’t see
Sitting in the down-
pour with the dark,
wishing you had one person.
One soul there,
In your space that you share

Two others unconnected.
Friendly
But so **** distant, washing
sheets in desperate attempts to quell
all that leaking in your stomach.
In your throat
In your mind
Twisting deeper every night
The uncertainty, the **** sinking in your gut
And you can’t even make it
prose.

Playing god
Playing maker
Playing yourself
Or this self
Who is,
Or is not
The person you are,
Or might be.

Anchorless
Without one to soothe,
one to help you
Remember

That yes
I am.
Yes, there are people
Who would choose me
Over you
At any time.
You don’t even think,
because you don’t know if it’s true anymore
And how could anyone care
Enough about you
To care
To care
To care

About what?

The words steal
themselves from you.
Your mind is blank
You play at poet
Play at person
And you can’t get either right
But in the end
Does it matter
If no one knows you well enough
To see the façade fall

Half a world away
No closer than two stars half bright
Half alive only half the time

And I the hapless gazer
The amateur enthusiast
The wakened soul who cries with the wolves
To the moon
‘who am I to gaze’
‘who am I to covet what I’ve left’

and they, far as the distant cosmos
form constellations with pins of flickering light
that I’ve never considered before
never known or cared to know
myths, and names, and stories that I
the hapless gazer
will only watch with a bleary jealous wonder

Passing nomads gaze with me for a moment
For a moment let me dress in their clothes
Eat from their table
Drink from their cup
For a moment
With the promise of return one day
To gaze with me
On their terms
For one more moment