It's too soon to live in memories
I try to convince myself
Years don't change everything
I try to convince myself
This is no prison I'm living in
I have the keys, the locks are not broken
I try to convince myself I have a reason
For not using them

Grab a pen and some paper
Some of these are important
I just know they are
These are the things that made me what I am
Aren't they?
The sum total of all my experiences, right?
I need to chronicle and catalog
Separate the wheat from the chaff
This will set me straight
Or maybe not...could be a waste of time

Time takes them away, one by one
Teases, bringing some back
Then snatching them away again
Despite my best efforts
To hoard them
Years don't change everything
The cruel workings of time
Are eternal

Of this I am convinced

I've sacrificed freedom
To live in a cage
To settle for memories
For fear that hurt would break in
And make itself comfortable
Quick to remind me of the memories
It helped make

I'm convinced I have no reason
To break these chains
An empty house, alone
Is better than such bad company

I found you bleeding in the bathtub,
And I couldn’t help but stare,
Cause it was just last week you told me,
Water’s easier to breathe than air,
I didn’t think you meant it,
Like I know you meant it now,
And your lifeless eyes watched me,
As I turned and walked back out.

I fear the way you love me:
That tender-touching kiss
Seducing me to nightly
Sink deep in your abyss.

Those smooth caresses take me
To places that I dread,
Your cunning fingers rouse me
To plan such lies ahead.

But while we writhe and tumble
In lust's hypnotic hold,
I fear the final stumble
That will see the truth unfold.

You ran your finger
along the spine

of books on your bookshelf
and took down

Betting on the Muse
by Charles Bukowski

and opened it
at random

reading the stories
and poem after poem

then having
nothing better to do

you got to page 292  
and a poem titled

the good soul
and laughed out loud

like a dog barking
in dead of night

and your shoulders shook
and your wife said

What’s so funny?
and you said

Oh just words
and she turned over

and back to sleep
and you put down

the book
beside the bed

and turned out
the light

laughing at the poem
inside your head.