Unimpressed by excess,
(gluttony doesn't strike a chord with me)
Contrarily, I forever seek more,
but rather than in quantity, I prefer in degree.  

I demand extremes.

If its hot,
I want it to blaze;
If its difficult,
I want it to incapacitate.
If its confusing,
I want it to dizzy me to the point of vomiting.
I want to shake and storm about,
and overwhelm and be overwhelmed.

I demand extremes.

Words need intent and meaning.
If they are meant to inspire,
they better make me ******* soar.
Biting words should drain the victim,
make them bleed,
instead of simply causing discomfort
or stunning momentarily.

I demand extremes.

Why say it,
when I can scream it?

Why just feel it,
when I can be consumed by it?

I  can't just idly sit by and watch my life
but rather I must fight and struggle and
lash out at it violently.
Days are long and meant to be conquered
and nights are meant to be devoured.

Why be content to just live life
when you can beat the **** out of it instead?

*Just don't be surprised when it returns the favor

Contentment is admirable,
complacency is dangerous.
Lines be                                                   b
                 t                                               l
                w                  often                     u
                   ee                                              r.
              ­        n                                               .
       ­                                                                 ­   .
                                                               ­         ..
                                                     ­                  .
                                                                     .
                                                               .
                                                 .

Elbows propped on tabletops,
we roll out our worlds, like a red carpet,
across the surface between us.
Mapping out our weeks
we speak in riddles
only able to be understood by
present company and others with
an acute appreciation for the absurd.

Round 1
We begin by bouncing pleasantries
mingled with snark and
littered with nonsense stories
across the space where our scotch glasses
drain lazily between us.

Round 2
Brings with it a new tone-
we begin to slip into hypotheticals
and start the dangerous
and all too familiar process of
looking over our own shoulders.
The past seems to sneak
into the pauses and reminiscing starts
to seem too surreal to be appealing.

Round 3
And we are forced to keep reluctant company
with the regret that now speckles the tabletop in front of me.
Our eyes retreat from each other
as our  mouths start forming
around our greatest inadequacies.
Fear of the future,
we're petrified by the present.
We are forgetting how to be hesitant
as coping mechanics drift and split.

Round 4
**** starts to get real.
You try to be ambivalent.
And I just get angry.

Round 5
I am entertaining the possibility
of weeping publically.
(It's an unfortunate emotional default setting)

Round 6
We find our way back
to the familiar.
Accessing the damage
we joke to save face
while working to wind the loose ends
back together again
to stash them from where they came.
(But nothing ever fits back into its box as easily after its been unpacked)

Each week we try to be
each other's comfort zone
to crawl inside
to rest awhile.
But tonight we're too exhausted
and too self-absorbed
and too similar to get it right.
We'll try again next week,
on the next high-top next Wednesday night.

You are so tentative and terrified
and we both know beyond a reasonable doubt
exactly how much of it is all my fault.

There is no way to deny
my responsibility this time.

But I am confident and competent
and, at this point, not really giving a ****-
(rock bottom has advantages sometimes.)

I have nothing left to lose
because I have already misplaced you
but I am a master of Hide and Seek
and you are not terribly hard to find.

**I gave you fair warning that I wasn't backing down this time.

Softball game recap:**
We went down swinging...
                
unfortunately,

                        only figuratively...