In the back of cars, in the restroom stalls
human nature draws contracts
with give and take as the norm
some for pleasure, some want control

the bond is there for the cash
where some connect for no bucks
transaction is the alternative
this for that, then separate

they say joy is had by all
this is far from the mark
survival is the claim of one
while the other seeks to control

power stems from the wallet
differential in power’s game
don’t forget the mastery
it’s held by the one who pays

in its wake the die is cast
contracts bleeding the two souls
leaving something there to die
in back of cars, in restroom stalls.

© 2017. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20170424.

Do you ever think about the boy who loved you with his whole heart?
Do you ever think about the boy who let you turn him into a monster?
Do you ever think about the time when you yelled at me for getting my hair cut?
It was over skype, while you were on vacation with your family
I wore a hat for three days to try and hide it from you because I knew you'd be mad.
Do you ever think about the time you told me I was selfish in bed?
Do you ever think about the time you told me I made you feel like **** because you were a grade above me but we were taking the same biology class?
Because I quit taking science classes that year
And recently I took one again for the first time since we broke up and I realized that I'm good at it and I like it, but there's no time for me to catch up enough to study it in college.
Do you ever think about all the times I tried to get my emotions out on paper and how you either laughed at the improbability or told me it was disgusting?
Do you ever think about how you told me to stay in the closet so that your parents wouldn't be upset?
Do you ever think about the night when you called me a monster and screamed on the floor of my bedroom, beneath my desk?
Do you remember how I held you for hours on the floor, even as you clawed at my arms and legs?
Do you ever think about how you taught me that love was giving up everything, becoming some guy I never was, to make somebody else happy?
Do you ever think about how that could have ****** me up?
Do you ever think about how we had *** every time we were alone together but you never once kissed me?
Do you ever think about how you couldn't tell me you loved me unless you called me Chauncey?
Do you ever think about what you did to me?
Because I do.
Oh my God, I do.

Friends with bad habits
Are the ones that you keep you up at night
Their blurry vision and poor choices
And their hands on the wheel
Get home safe tonight.

He who works
with mortality
seeks morality.
To be good,
to be kind,
he walks into
the burning
sands of time
alone.

But a man should not
stand alone,
should find a home,
work out his wanderlust
but settle down,
should have a tribe
to stand by his side,
to be his guide,
when he is wrong
and listen when
he is right.

Perhaps,
I am a fool
who is too far gone
and always wrong,
but how far would I go
to come back home
to my friends again.

Will I always be
one second to late
to see them succumb
to the only true fate?

This is not a depressive poem,
merely a preemptive
elegy for the heart of me.

If I cried you a tear,
would you watch it fall,
would it write your name
in hews of black,
black like my heart since the day I left,
for we destroyed those rocks of old,
where we carved our vows in letters so bold,
such precious things have we let go,
into the realms of the waters so deep,
lost in the tides of the tears I weep,
your heart I hold in these withered hands,
fragile, protected and safe in their grasp,
for you my love I shall forever remain
locked in the sound of this sad refrain.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.