You've got vision
and you've got need
and there is power
in following where
you lead.
But I'm dead tired
and broken hearted
and the light outside
has fallen
too low to see.
And I've got meaning
and I've know tough
and I've got all
the memories of
all the things
that I've seen.
Maybe tomorrow we'll
be well
enough to walk from this
burning hell
into fields and pastures
of brilliant green.
One day, I hope and pray,
you'll be beside me
when I lay
down forever for
more than sleep.
Until then we'll be strong
and we'll manage,
together, to get along
because since the start
you've always been
all I need.
And so take heart
and take love
and every ounce
of the blood
that we'll bleed.
Walk with me
hand in hand
all along and across
this land.
Together, my love,
you and me.

We weren't heaven
but we weren't hell, either
and maybe we're clichés
but there's nothing wrong
with plain average mediocrity.
We were ships in the night
all vision but no sight
and maybe we could've
tried harder to slide together
like puzzle pieces but we
just never fit quite right.
And they don't write songs
about what we had,
not even little humming
summer time pop hits,
but we still had it and we,
you and me,
might've been day one doomed
but we get to decide what
we meant to each other
and what we didn't and
we won't agree on what that is
but we never really agreed
on anything else, even when
we seemed to.
What's one more day
removed from never going
to happen?
Sure, we were a pit stop
a diversion on the road
to the places we were going
to finally end up, and
the memories are fuzzy
and the worth dubious
but here's that poem
you always wanted, finally.
I apologize it took me so long,
but hey, you were once
used to that, anyway.

Thirty years ago was yesterday,
it's amazing how fast it all goes
considering how long everything
has always seemed to take.
Hours ago, I was a boy
learning life lessons from
twenty-five year olds
without a clue about
what they were doing
and struggling in the
everyday poverty we all
pretend isn't as ordinary
as it is. As it always has been.
My parents, not yet
forty years old when
I graduated high school,
didn't keep their vows
but many parents didn't.
The whole homes I saw
were odd to me, alien
in their completeness
and intimidating in their
warmly expressed affection.
I always knew, in my bones
and in my blood, that
I would be better, even
incomplete I would look
whole from a distance
if I could just guide the
narrative and live the
white lies about hope
and promise I would
someday see a tomorrow
that made yesterday look
small in it's distance
from today.
It was seven lifetimes
living this lifetime
and it still happened in
the blink of an eye
and everyone tells you that
it will happen that way
and you believe you understand
but I didn't.
I sure thought I did,
a million years back
when it was still
five seconds ago.

I don't know how to quench
I only know how to burn.
When the house burns down
I do not know how to pull
you to safety, love, but
I know how to lift the burning
beam you are trapped under
and take your place among
the flames.
I don't want to shoulder
your every burden I want
to gently press my lips
to your wounds and ****
the poison from your blood.
I want to feel the anguish
and the grief and the lifetime
of pain and anxiety course
through my beating heart
until the hurt you cannot
shed lives in the tips of
my fingers and toes where
I can wiggle them with
both effort and abandon
while you finally breathe
the easy breaths of the well.
I don't want to catch your sick
I want to take it.
I want to rut in sweaty sheets
until you haven't got the fever
that now burns inside me.
I don't want to exorcise your
various demons because I've
long lived with my own and
know exactly the place on
my back where I've room
left to carry.
I don't want to live with
the healing conversations
because they are difficult,
because honesty and openness
require me to move foward
but suffering is second hand.
I have long known how to
walk on a limp but have
never learned to hand out
a crutch.
I'd apologize but I don't
know how to begin
empathy is anathema but
assuming blame is rote.
The house is on fire, love,
and only one of us can still
get out. Allow me to settle
in where you are pinned
as you slide from under.
I'm not here to guide you
safely to the fresh air.
I hope you will feel better
if you can watch me char
to worthless cinder and ash.
I hope this will help but I
don't even know how to ask.

Maybe it's the twisting,
the shrinking on the vine
or the hollow feelings
I've buried deep inside.
Or the late night emergencies
and the bleeding that
can't be stopped or tied.
Or maybe it's tomorrow
and the secrets it'll
find to scheme and hide.
Maybe it's the failures
following everything
we've ever tried.
Maybe the answers
aren't coming no matter
how much time we bide.
Maybe tonight is all the
chance we'll ever have
to stem the rising tide.
I don't have answers
to the long questions
of this ride
but I'm working toward
solutions to the promises
and the lies they've lied
even if it seems I'm aimless
or in penalty or standing
on the other side.

I am so tired of toiling
blind in the dark
and of the casual unkindness
of traffic or queues for
parking spots or telephone
operators or restaurant tables.
I am tired of endless power
cords crisscrossing my
lifetimes and tabletops.
Of phone battery life and GPS
coordination and livestreams.
Tired of digital leases
and tubes for late night
breathing machines.
I am tired of learning
that sometimes it is too late
to try new adventures
and tired of ten hour
shifts at a minimum breaking
my hands and my back
and I'm tired of dying
but only half as much as
I'm tired of living.
I'm tired of timed pills
and twice a day vitals.
I'm tired of eating and sleeping
and winning and losing
and pressure cooker choices
and cooking.
and I'm tired of fighting
so hard to survive and tired
of having a ****** up childhood
and tired of trauma and
rehabilitation and tired
so very tired
of the nonstop
need to stop and explain why.
Why it's hard and why birds
are real and the earth isn't flat.
Why I'm like this because we all
know why I'm like this
it's been talked to ******* death.
I'm tired of me.
I wanna crawl outta my skin
and dance the night in my bones.
I wanna leave the past and the
shackles and the now and
the pain and the future and the
uncertainty and lay about
as nothing nowhere for untime.
I'm tired of it.
**** me and my *******.
How're you?

A cresent Halloween moon hangs
in the bruised-dark October sky
like a crooked smile or a victim
and we talk sweetest poison
about long ago, far away spring
like it has any meaning
because it's gone now and we're
all still here and there is
no fixing that or replacing
the wasted hours we've spent
longing for yesterdays.
No how-to tutorials or quick
video essays that'll point us
toward the thaw and the chill
inside our bones will serve
to remind us of the flaw
in our planned escape
like clotting blood or
traffic stops wait for us
in those dark, lost hours
we remember so ******* fondly.
Maybe we'll run this too
so far into the ground that
it'll plant like seed and be
fertilized by our *******
dead dreams until it grows
into something not too twisted
for us to recognize and sing
spiritual around
because hope springs eternal
if you've got the money
the rest of us just gotta learn
to enjoy all the leftover suffering.
Here, they say from wifi
and airwaves and bandwidth,
is some free advice,
This is not financial advice:
long is the night, the night is long
and even the bard didn't
know how to burn it into sunrise
but with your hand in mine,
and a little hope and a little time,
we might see an April sun
in this nighttime October sky.