Love is like taxis
They're everywhere when you don't need it
But nowhere to be found when you do

I like the way you say my name.
It’s the only resonance I need as I lay alone in the onyx night.
I miss you the most when I feel insignificant.
Maybe just maybe, you’ll think of me when I’m not around.
Maybe you’ll remember how much you aroused my heart.
I cherished you more than I did my own sanity.

I'm a bit over the weather, really.
And last year's me may well have been
Rather under the weather, and nearly
Submerged by the deluge when it was seen
That beyond the grey was nothing:
I did not see far enough, and if I
Have seen further, it is because I
Once stood on the shoulders of giants. Nothing
To say I can't do it again, even if the ascent
Is easier said than done. Rather than a further descent,
Rather than the blocking of my sun, a sun that I
Have a right to as much as any and all that live,
I will embrace all, and thank even the rain, for I
Am really a bit over the weather, and ready to forgive.

I deserve better than empty days
And empty nights, and the empty gaze
Of an empty screen, and my words
My words, my word, hounding me
Like they hounded you, the birds
That knew no better than to fly free
And sing a tune they thought you'd hear
And find sweet. How I tossed teaspoon
After tablespoon of honey, cinnamon, and cumin
Thinking I was a pretty picture, not the loon
I know looking back from the mirror, fuming
Unjustly at you for not seeing ever
This woman who lost herself as she'd persevere
And sever her pride. But it was I, forever,
Who blocked my ears and bound my eyes, to revere
Nothing of any reality or love, an empty chamber
In which my broken voice reverberates, a dying ember,
"Love me, J--, love me?", though my heart knows
That this was not the place to ask or look
My heart cried after I did not listen to her throes,
"This man isn't even a chapter in your book."

The gentleman is too proud, methinks
As is the lady, lazed and dazed, not, too aware
And with all her cares upon the brinks
She toys, with painted fingernails
She knows that not much of what she's doing's really fair
But is is it fair now, when it fails?

I wish I didn't think on you
I wish I didn't think on him
I wish the image of yet another
Long-gone, long-imprinted former lover
Didn't buoy and continued to swim
I wish Love was out of my view.

I wish I'd played a better hand
I wish I'd tilled the soil before
I wish the image of a past future
Didn't rip open the suture
Of my trying to forget the lore
I weaved around a much-fantasised land.

I wish I didn't wish in vain
I wish that I'd let die and live
I wish the image of Her, myself,
Didn't taunt me from my shelf
I made a dusty shrine, forgive
The trespass that I own, in pain.

I wish that I were sober, honey,
And a little drunker, for my money,
Though I invested little, and I die:
I hope I will not breath last 'til I try.

Some three-quarters of the time the mind is a-whir
With all of the poisons and burdens I bear
And, honey, if I could be sober, I would, but I try.
I deny the flesh, and I deny the liquor,
I deny the substance, and God, and I'm sicker,
And, honey, if I could be sober, I would, but I die.
The answer it lies in my opposite hands
That try all at once to conquer new lands
And write terrible poems, and bake dastardly breads,
And still all my lovers lie cold in their beds -
I satisfy no one, not even myself.
But, honey, I try and be sober,
Though maybe that's not quite the answer,
And maybe that's why
Life has left me up high
On that dusty, dusty shelf.
But, honey, I wish I were sober
'Cos maybe all this would be over
Until another voice says "You're not lost enough."
And I say, Milady, you're plainly wrong,
For the wind is my carriage, and silence, my song,
I'm a diamond that can't cut herself out of the rough.
"Lose yourself to the zest, lose yourself to the tune
Of the rhythm of life, and find you will soon
There's another disinhibition that can aid you,
Turn that thing around, that madness that previously stayed you."
I'm full of good colour, I'm full of great life,
But I'm tied by confusion, who bares a keen knife,
If I embraced my health and my joy, then perhaps I'd be sweeter,
And I do like change, but I'd love for my mind to be neater
Or at least wilder with thoughts that bare better times
I'll try catch the rhythm, and I'll follow with rhymes
I'll be drunk on Life, not forever hungover,
It's only my outlook needs be a wee bit more sober.