John Keats
John Keats
John
Please put your scarf on.

I have traveled back in time
Or maybe I have dreamt this place in 1987

A bank
My mother a teller
In the middle of a divorce
Or maybe the divorce hasn’t happened yet

My father walks in
He is a security guard
College dropout
Ex-marine
Loves fighting as much as I do

She never went to college
Maybe she thinks he is mysterious
He prevents a robbery
Beats a man in the parking lot

He flirts with her over a coffee break
And this is the part where everything goes fuzzy
Because I could never see my father as a charming man

I want to tell them to stop
If love at first sight
Cared enough to have foresight too
They’d stop

Maybe they were nice people once
If we all knew what we’d one day become
We could fix things

I want to tell them that they will have children
I want to tell them about the things that they will do to these children
And then to themselves
And back and forth and back and forth
Like a pendulum made of knives and soft things

But I do not exist in this place in 1987
And even if I did

I want to live
I want to live

In the early morning hours,
She's tucked in.
Wide awake and dreaming,
Of some place she hasn't been.

In the early morning hours,
She'll count sheep.
Too many thoughts and people,
To distract her from her sleep.

In the early morning hours,
She will sigh.
Questioning existence,
And the never ending 'why.'

If my eyes should betray,
pluck them from their holes.
and if my hands deny you,
cut them from my arms.
and when my feet turn away
from us
smash me at the knees
for I would rather be
blind and lame
than not be yours,
in your garden of grey blooms.

One day I went fishing, unloaded at the dock
And picked up on the sadness that the earth was giving off
No matter where I wandered, I always felt its pain
It matched the kind inside of me for it was all the same
The day had passed so quickly, the night would soon be here
Intensify despondency and make me disappear
I knew I needed something, the thought had not caught on
'Til weariness displaced my bones in ground I walked upon