Slouched and snoring on the sofa
Holding an empty bottle
At the end of an empty day
My little arms extended
Almost toppled as he slumped to me
Did my best to guide him to his rest
And that is how he said goodbye
My last picture of him captured for all of time
That is how he said goodbye

She wiped the tears from her eyes
As the echoes of the yelling stopped
Turned and walked away
As she blew out the candle of her heart
I reach out to stop her
But she was already out the door
She whispered “I’ll miss who I thought you were”
Without even looking back one time more
And that is how she said goodbye
The last sound she made was the closing of the door
That is how she said goodbye

She told me the same story
With all the same suspense and surprise
I chose to ignore the signs
Of the clear and long goodbyes
It’s hard to be there for a mother  
That taught you to never need another
And that is how I said goodbye
With the gun of inaction and the bullet of indifference
That is how I said goodbye

In the end there is the end
Fade to black; the standard trope
But I picture more a giving back
Of all things that made up me
Scattered far and wide across the galaxy
To be used again ad infinitum
And that is how I’ll say goodbye
One last repeating encore acted out again
That is how I’ll say goodbye

like the lion became the house cat
and the wolf became the poodle
*** has been domesticated
it has been made small and controllable
your desires have been selectively bred
down to acceptable sizes
nothing too grand
or over the top
stray too far from the center
and they will
castrate you in the press

You look deep into those bottomless wounded eyes
and you see all the loss that lives there
so overcrowded and well-guarded
But one loss looms large over all
The loss of hope
from all the times she fell in love
and was not caught
each time she said I love you
and heard only silence in return
it is all she hears
all she believes she deserves

It is May 25th, 2022
27 times this year
Children have been gunned down in their schools
27 times
SO FAR
In less than six months
Over 140 dead  
That is heart wrenching  
The thing that makes it
Even more so is that,
in a few days
this poem will be obsolete
and the new number will be 28.

can't you hear the ticking
can't you see the clock
it can't tell what is right or wrong
just tick tick ticking along
you know man made time
now time makes man
without any kind of plan
just tick tick ticking along
time has the upper hand
and a face that doesn't change
it doesn’t know the hour
it doesn’t even know the power
that those two hands hold
just tick tick ticking along
can't blame the clock for making us old
it is the eye that sees the clock
sees it tick tick ticking along
that carves the lines on our souls

Milestones become millstones worn about your neck
when your goal is just an endless trek
now you’re 2,000 miles from anyone that knows your name
and somehow it all still feels so much the same
your rabid effort to lead yourself astray
in hope of getting closer to being further away
the echo of your own footsteps
and all of those deafening regrets
push you onto the next unknown destination
where you hope to find that soul restoration
till you realize that there is only so far you can roam
until you are on your way back home
thousands of miles left broken in your wake
the need to be that perfect imperfect stranger is an ache
but your demons sit upon your shoulder
and every day they grow bolder
because they know why you always run
they know what you have and haven’t done

I drove by the college today
sun hungry students
fall like leaves into the grass
(Both are soft, young, and supple)
knowledge will have to wait
today the sun is all they need to know