A wool-knit sweater to keep out the chills
And a hot cup of tea to swallow the pills

A blank television sits atop a wooden shelf
And a quiet nightstand stands all for himself

Hunched and unlimber, he walks to the window
The pale moon stares as the stars hang low

With his wrinkled hands, he covers his face

The moon shines bright on better days
The moon shines bright on better days

Lately I've been looking for reasons to live. Not because I...plan on committing suicide soon. Because I lost my reason and way. I've walked a path of uncertainty, pain, filth, selfishness. I've belittled myself over countless mistakes, for errors in my genetic coding that makes me who I don't want to be.

   After all the cuts, scratches, burns and scars I think I'm ready to get better. Not through whittled down razorblades but through love and kindness. Like the theory of Nature Vs Nurture, it's not my nature holding me back, it's my lack of nurture. I'm an alcoholic ready to give up his bottle, a gambler whose chips are up. A suicide case who doesn't want his life to start with a person and end...with a rope.

   Lately I've been looking for reasons to live. 59 reasons for why I should live, 23 people who I hold close to my heart. Even if we don't talk, even if it's hard to breathe at night, even when there's no way out, even when I sob and reach out like a drowning man for oxygen I look, so much harder than anyone else for a reason to live.

   I think I just...lost my way. I'm looking for a reason to live...I'm selfish. I'm caring. I'm lost and I'm learning. I'm not a bad person but I'm no saint. I'm trying to do this for me.

i don't want to smell alcohol
on your breath when you kiss me,
i want to taste the hours that you waited
and to feel how much you missed me.

i don't want to breathe in smoke
when i bury my face into your chest,
i want to hear your barely-beating heart
and feel it pulsate in the warmth of your flesh.

i don't want to see the moon & stars
swirl like diamonds against the onyx sky,
unless i can do so in the comfort of your arms
and have your fingers interwoven with mine.

i don't even want my morning coffee
unless you're the one that brings it to me,
having learned to make it just the way i like it
and committed my preferences to your memory.

i don't want sunrises or sunsets
if i can't watch them dance upon your skin,
or love you between dove-white sheets
on saturday mornings at half-past ten.

i don't want to see the day i become old & grey
an early grave i would sooner invite,
than to live to greet old age without you
by my side to guide me into eternal night.

- m.f.