Quivering, my hands try to hold
the thing most beyond man’s control.
My bloodshot eyes cannot behold
the weariness I can’t console.

My achy bones refuse to move
to encounter the vague unseen,
to meet what latent dreams disprove
in the fog of the in between.

I’ve not adjusted to the light.
I tried but my eyes weren’t prepared.
I want the end to be in sight—
the insight of which I am scared.

When will at last I be awake?
Is this the day I understand?
I stumble out into daybreak
to hold the future in my hand.

You know why time flies?
Because it never slows to stop.
When time hits you, it does so with a crash.
It hurtles into you with violent awareness.

Time doesn’t crawl.
It doesn’t walk. Or even run.
Time doesn’t unfold methodically, or slowly.
Time is an event. And another.

The arrow of time is a broken spear.
It’s not straight and not constant.
The present announces itself, out of nowhere.
Time is a measure of suddenness.

Time is revelation.
It is darkness speckled with epiphany.  
Time passes only when change happens.
There are no small changes in life.

I’m the cling-clang of coins in my pocket,
and loose paperclips in a desk drawer.
Like lipstick and gum in a lady’s purse,
I’m a kid’s toys strewn about on the floor.

When I walk my insides rattle about,
like a  janitor’s keys without his ring,
like groceries bagged by junior baggers,
I’m jumbled as a cat’s unraveled string.

I’m less ordered than a box of Legos,
or debris remaining after a storm.
Nuts and bolts in an amateur toolbox
click-clack and click-clack with even more form.

I’m just a package of random loose parts,
though the world sees me as perfectly fine.
Life is making order of that chaos,
but it’s my life and that chaos is mine.

There are far too many goodbyes for me,
though in its own moment, each has its place.
There’s infinite goodbye variety,
from “see you soon” to gone without a trace.

The polite wave goodbye across a crowd,
the goodbye of one fixed in distant gaze,
hopeless and anguished goodbyes cried aloud,
relieved goodbye a babysitter says.

But two goodbyes rip me apart inside—
no return or return I know not when.
Which is worse I had hoped not to decide,
until I said the worse goodbye again.

Final goodbyes to one gone forever
hurt  less than “goodbye, love, till whenever.”

To touch her nakedness with my own
was to take our most human moment
and suspend it higher than the stars
where human beings had no right to be.

To kiss her while we met in bareness
was to transcend our humanity
and in our most ****** pleasure
feel totally unconfined freedom.

To make love with nothing between us
was to make humans’ humanity
and have the two come alive as one
where life itself is understatement.

Whence does the Earth spin on its axis,
turning day after day, boundless energy
transforming boundless horizons
to sunrise, to sunset, and to sunrise again?

Would the Earth spin on its axis
if not for me, here, aging day by day
and seeing the morning after darkness
reminding me to be a little more alive?

Whence the energy to turn the world?
It must be the joy that beats in my heart
empowering my will to live,
and to love. Whence that power?

A woman. Beautiful inside and out,
wind blowing in her hair, her smile
replacing the sun. A beautiful woman,
this is what spins the world on its axis.

Whence the world keeps spinning?
For me it is my heartbeat, an engine
of love that she feeds with a goodness
good and beautiful enough to power the world.

This tunnel of vision
defies indecision.
To choose with precision,
I hide from derision.

The voices outside me
tell me lies to guide me.
With no one beside me,
I hear what’s inside me.

I can find my out.
I’ve always done without
others knowing my route
or what I’m all about.

Though the tunnel’s unlit,
dark and loneliness fit.
I’ve made myself commit,
Straight ahead, and don’t quit!