I hate it.
For a musician,
Maybe it's fun. The beat.
To keep you alive.

But writing is just like *****.
That sometimes,
Spills out all night
After a terrible day.

All I want is sleep.
All I get is words puking out.
Sharp little hands crawling up my throat.
Scratching on my teeth.

So up I go. Fumbling for the lights.
Again.
In the dark.
To let them out.

I feel like there's this second life being lived around me.
One of those toys. Where you wind it up. And it
Spins all over. And falls over. Spent.
The other life might be like that. Where a gear gets to winding,
In this standing thing that,
Thought blank I guess. Seems quite not
discontented with all this standing.
And there's this burst. All this flying around
and schools and cars and highways and highways.
All these roads swirling around on, riding
on?
And then I drive up after my morning classes.
And just don't want to leave.
But the winding has to start again.
Some law. Nature.
I get cagey. But mostly I'd rather not leave the cage.
So this other guy with all his motives and ****.
With his resume. And his fantasies of
martyrdom and heroism and political
winningism.
His campaign t-shirts.
His volunteering.
His training.
He stands there and puts up with me.
     Real me.
        The. Me.
        The guy writing to you. Real me.

He puts up with me until all the cranking bit
is finished and he zoom off away.
Sometimes though I think. When he's walking.
Or when all the walking and talking and training
stops.
He thinks about me, and why his chest feels so cold.
He's off with his fire fighting.
       friends, work, homework, campaigns, life.
And I'm just shivering. Waiting for a body again.

How else could I write you this letter?
I have to wait for him to circle back.
To miss this chest full of fear.
To come on home.
To what he should be doing if he could make any money at it.
and if anybody ever saw they'd put
it in a magazine.

But we don't care about money.
I've never wanted anything that badly.
There's no place I'm furious to see.
     (though I like those relaxing ones)

We just want to do that thing we're supposed to do.
The ticket out.
I'll keep on writing.
     (I feel good about it)
And he'll keep on with the life saving.
And the TV show happy face,
Real jobs and everything.

Until it washes over.
Like a cliche preacher would say.
Or warm surf.
But I hate the ocean.
Hot air in a car after all day in the cold
classroom.
It'll come.
And I'll just go.
Warm.

You ever stand there,
In the Fall dark.
Hearing the City as a groan.
And dogs fighting past the yard.

And think. That's something.
They have something.

In some yard I've never seen,
But I know is bare of grass.
From kids and paws.
Where there's faded plastic
Rotting toys.
The kind you pedal around in
Or gnaw on.
Or pick up and know the cracks.
Because you bought it new,
But now.

And those dogs, with another
dog for each.
           They've got something.

I've got bread. Good dark stuff.
And a pen. And lots of other things.
And people. And places.

More than those dogs.
I don't know if I want any of it.
Love and comfort, great tastes and sights.
I know I'd feel sick if I ever lost it.
Just, sick at the void.
That I'd have to fill of go down
The change would worry me.
And my stomach.
Who really does his own things.
All those kids at that pep rally
Who watched how that warm soda unfolded.

Unfolded may not be the
best way to describe horrible
acid ***** humility that I brushed
off then but worries me so much now.

The change.
I think mostly I'd like to sit in the
Same place, and do the same things,
And drink the same couple of root beers.
And just see how all that goes.

He stands there alone in a forest.
He kneels there. Alone.
"Devil take my soul. If you want it."
No Devil hears.
No God shakes his head.
He lays down alone in the forest.

And the night is as dark as it ever was.

Maybe we think lights are so beautiful,
Because we're just trails through space too.
Maybe what you're made of doesn't matter.
Any more than what you're not made of.

I'm so tired.
And it's so late.
My eyes are blurred.
Slower.
I'm skipping letters,
Or just writing the wrong ones.
But I know there's still something to say.
Some weight before sleep can lift me.

She texted me this thing.
A guy she was hanging out with.
How he was such an artist.
I immediately thought he was a *******.
He had taken her phone and
God knows why,
Was texting me.

Didn't know it was a guy.
Thought I was humoring
One of her girlfiends.

He tried to convince me
Raleigh was the "cultural capitol of the south."
"If I could go anywhere, I'd go to Savannah."
"...nah."
That ******* line. "Nah (my opinion is more valid than yours."
****.

Any guy that had Jessie's phone
Would have been a ****.

Because I saw that girl one day,
She's never
Out of my head.
God.
Three years.
Or two?
Still.
Two years and nothing happened.

Nothing even came close to happening.
I can take a hint but,
Is she even that good of a friend?
Why?
The hell am I upset of this?

I'm planning some crazy trip.
Risking the life of my car
(she's on her last cylinder)
And...
I can't think of a good reason.
She doesn't even like me.
I'm not sure I even like her.

Unless of course I'm stupidly in love
with a person I've had two years to
barely know.
And all that was denial.
Grasping at reasonable straws.

God I'm lost.

You know when your grandma makes something and you ask why it's so good.
She says some terrible cliche like,
"The secret ingredient is love."
You blow that off and ask for a recipe anyways.
Then you make it and it isn't any good.
You make it again.
You go to work.
Have *** with the girl from class.
Mix a drink by yourself.
And even the weekend baking isn't any good.