She crosses the room.
Sets her things down
and sits beside me.
“What do we do?”

There are platitudes.
Overcome.
This too shall...
Words are false and hollow.
They don’t prepare you
for these challenges.

Envelopes filled with bad news
and money owed pile up
on the little table by the door.
“What do we do?”

Tired eyes search tired eyes.
There is love there, but far too
much struggle.
Life was not meant to be
a battle.
Love was meant to prevail.
To guide.
“What do we do?”

“I don’t know! I don’t ******* know!”
You shout. Too loud.
Too sudden.
Tired, so tired.
This is now.
This is who you are?

She smiles. Holds your hand.
You smile back. Weak and defeated.
“I know, baby.”
She says.
“I know.”

I.
Where does the time go?

With cupped hands going slowly empty.
Ignite like a sun in this very room.
Burn for us.
Burn.

II.
I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Falling.
The wind rushes by.
Accompany this flight with taunts.
You cannot achieve.
Over and over.
Falling.

III.
I’ll never be you! I don’t want to be you!

Voices echo back.
Bouncing off tile and brick.
Distorted.
Words that don’t fit
in sentences that don’t make sense.

IV.
I just have to get out of this town.

Turn signals switched like muscle memory.
Showers taken like anniversaries.
Faces cycle through.
Features changing only with time.
This is forever.
Escape.

V.
How did I become this person?

Read to me.
Teach me the stories.
Tell me the values.
Whisper life into these bones.
I ache to fly.
I see your sky, the clouds soft and perfect.
I want that.
Show me.

Out the **** light.
Away with feet and shoes.
Laces drawn and Velcro snapped.
He runs his personal miracle mile.
From dawn to dusk,
wake to quick to finish.
He sleeps now. The shades
closed, the world soft and still.
His breathing ragged always.
Patience and peace his only virtues.
Tomorrow!
Tomorrow will blaze.
Will burn.
Tomorrow!
He’ll ignite his dreams, and track the
ever elusive spirit of this country
to it’s rest chamber.
Buckled saber, shield aloft
he will vanquish the soul and
in it’s place he will carve himself
and his future.
Tomorrow.
Patience.
Peace.
Tomorrow.
Always.
Out the **** light.

She said she didn’t care if I was
anything else,
so long as I believed in something.
As though I don’t believe, as
though I do not have the
capacity.
I do not need the comforting lies
from the pulpit to find
wonder in this world.
I do not need the rosary
to teach me dedication.
I do not need the ethereal
to know right from wrong
in the ephemeral.

I believe that I am whole.
The the world can be fixed.
That man has such strength in
imagination and invention.
I believe in the infinite and the finite.
I believe in helping each other to
accomplish tasks big and small.
I believe in a world that is not
divided among the petty lines
of bigoted accusation found in
your old, small book.

I know who I am.
I know who you are.
I can see a beauty
in this place that is
uncorrupted by the nay saying
of an imagined giant.

I say to you that I believe!
I only wonder if you do.

Tonight, my god, tonight!
I will meet you,
the first and last time.
Your cloak and dagger
existence, your
pallor of decay,
your dark dreams.

I will walk from this
comfort to the hill
by the moon.
Water rushing somewhere
below us.
I will find you there.
Patiently waiting.
Chess board before you,
sickle in hand.

I will meet Death tonight.
I will laugh at him,
turn my nose at him.
I will take the challenge.
I will rise to the occasion.

Tonight, my god Tonight!
I will be immortal.

I am not little anymore.
I have learned many things,
none of them may be taken back,
or altered to lobotomize
me into the child you miss.

I am a man now.
Albeit not the best example
of the lot. Perhaps not
even the best example of
humanity in general.
But grown, nonetheless.

I cannot change this.
I don't want to.
I know it is difficult to
see that I'm angry often,
that I'm bitter,
and worst of all that I
often hate the things you love.

I am not little anymore.
I wouldn't want to be.
Better of worse;
This is who I am.
It is who I have to be.
Hate it if you must,
but it is also
What you made me.

If the world ended
Now,
would any of us notice?
Would it be difficult
to see?
Could we plug in the
coordinates in our GPS?
Would it be a whimper?
Would it make a lot of noise?
If the world ended
Now,
would any of us care?
Could we divorce ourselves
of the tasks we have left
to do for the day?
Would we keep all our
appointments?
Would it bother us
at all?