Dad was fat all his life
Obese
He couldn’t do a lot of things.
Walk without special help
Bathe
Climb stairs
Sit in a normal chair
Drive a normal car
Sleep in a normal bed
And say “I love you, son.”

To draw those words out
of his dad he became a cartoonist,
but that also failed.

And now that his father
was dead,
collapsed face down
on the kitchen floor,
blood seeping out of a head wound,
he struggled to turn him over
on his back
and dipped his finger in the blood
and drew a speech bubble
next to his father’s head
and wrote in it the famous words.

Finally.
“I love you too, dad.”

I get the sense of some venture,
And want to push for experience;
The pursuit of excellence, what else?
Is there anything other?
The pursuit of Otherness, perhaps.
What of mediocrity,
And of what we say merits?
Does intention have merit unto itself?
Is our pursuit of the good life so premised on virtue,
And the Other as premised on whatever's vice?

I reclaim my cravings, and return
to attend to some wayward notions
in the darkness of my dear hometown.
Laudatio Ejus Manet In Secula Seculorum.
Who let the living out?

Its been a while since we sat and talked,
My friends of faceless fame.
Its been a while since I lost my friend,
My treasured brat, little one.
I found a path that killed the pain,
A path not walked for reasons.
I spent two weeks on its twisted curves,
And a fortune in green backed dollars.
The world sparkled for a while,
Crystalline lights and marble castles.
But now its over and my process done,
Back onto gravel work strewn passes.
Lets not wait so long my friend,
To talk of loved ones lost to life.
Lets spend more time with each others words,
Where we can cry and laugh and love.

Acceptable self-harm is drinking a pack of off-brand biscuits
through several cups of tea
every other evening.
Acceptable self-harm is binge-watching an entire season
of whatever's hooked it's tentacles into
the reward pathways of your brain
in one sitting.
Acceptable self-harm is buying into vicious ideology
because it makes you feel deep connection while
othering.

From bed to couch,
with shoulders sharing a distant brush,
you light a cigarette between sharp teeth,
your back bent so the cherry illuminates my naked knee.

That small fire spark,
of blooming blushing color,
grants me more warmth,
than you are willing to donate and let me discover.

It's smoke fumes the voiceless room,
the ashes drift delicately to embrace the floor,
I watch with eyes of green and wobbling lips,
until you complete the parting ritual.

Once you're gone I sit for a while,
mulling and chewing on my gagging thoughts,
endlessly seeking an answer for just...
one dreading question.

Why does smoke and ashes,
always linger longer around me,
than your presence?

A swan cruised down Lough Atalia
as midnight struck this brisk November
a second followed in its wake.
Sparse weeknight traffic sews by,
Woven into the quiet breeze of a new Wednesday.

I listen to a few tunes as I cycled down The Line,
Pausing to note this moment
and gaze upon G-twn.

Sometimes I feel so stricken by choice,
Yet constrained by an apathy
I wasn't born with.

In the quiet I keep watch under all the stars.

As they cradled each other
Rue and Jules turned the world 'round their scars.