A week of reality is gone in just seconds
As my life comes back to the reality
that lacks truth and acceptance
Not everyone can be an actor he said
but not everyone can tell the truth.

So I'm back to where I remain in the back of any group gathering photo

including my family's.

In my corner I sit uninspired
Cold confused alone and tired
Long cold months
Just me
An ordinary man who cannot find peace

You came and you held me close
You got into me
I was silent for so long
Years of thought poured out of me

Now I sit alone once more
Grateful for what you gave me

I have sat beside a number of snow-numbed
train stations. I am the smoking man, invisible
in my ivy hat and grey wool coat.

I have been thinking of you
for decades occasionally
sipping coffee from a paper cut.

The cats have more sense than to loiter
where the dog with the compound fracture
begs scraps among the cigarette butts and slush.
It would break your heart a thousand times
in quick succession, create a fluttering
like a cold pulseless breeze. The old women
on the wet stone steps sell onions, parsley
potatoes, pickles, spices and wooden matches. The
veteran of the old war sleeps ******* his
shoulder, and I think of you again
**** it.

a darker shade
embraced my shadow
and sew smiles out of my lips that he hung
on my mouth like the red-white bracelets
we give each other
each March
(somewhere far away from here)

I do not write,
I am spilled out on a page
like that time I got drunk on an empty soul
and vomited behind a dozen loves
on dog-****** snow

I am faulty
for I am an inhalation of the wind
and for

I fell from

love

into him

the tip of my fingers itch
and my eyelashes quiver like images of leaves
in water

Why did he decide
to make me part of his dream?

Why did I decide that these lines
are written for him?

There we were,
under the watch of the moon
and the distant traffic lights,
swinging from rope to water,
diving, turning, spinning.
Drunk on our youth,
we divested ourselves of our suits
and let the water sink around our bodies,
which glowed with untainted whiteness,
Clean&*****;&Free;
all at once.
We told each other we weren’t self conscious,
and maybe it was true,
but even if it wasn’t, it didn’t matter.
I have never felt so beautiful and alive,
as I did the moment I paused in midair at the apex
with the rope strangled under my muddy fingers
and let go,
my naked body under the stars and the moon and the sky,
flying weightless
through the night.

Where is home?
It is not here,
This place containing faces that are unchanging.

There is no escape,
Haunted by the ropes you are entrenched in
Pulling at you from all directions.

As you feel the pain,
You can do nothing
But stand there and cry.

As the tears run,
Your mind races, your heart beats in your ears,
You stand up from the low point which you were just in.

Ripping the ropes apart,
Shredding their tethers as you break free
From this world you are trapped in.

You are dying, begging,
Counting the days...

Until you leave this *brick built prison.

I am a dot on Seurat’s canvas.

You told me that I wouldn’t be respected if I used Times New Roman, well maybe I don’t write to be respected. Maybe I write in Times New Roman because I like to read in it.

I could write in Wingdings. Would that make you happy? Would that make me stand out?

I don’t write with words I don’t understand and I don’t embellish nature to sounds pretty. Times New Roman isn’t trying to impress anybody and neither am I.

I am writing about what is real and I am writing about how I feel and I don’t need your opinion and I don’t want to hear your spiel.

Did that make me stand out?