Once we trod the surface
like behemoth gods,
we moved through the world
like great ships under coal power
caring nothing for what
was in our way
or left in our wake.
And we could've been more
careful
I think we can admit
but ******* it's difficult
to slow down during
the doing of it.
When dawn came we were changed.
Softer round the middle
thinner in the knees
grayer at temples, perhaps.
Oh how gums and hairlines recede!
Payment for our lifetimes of greed.
And sure I've regrets,
what of it?
Sure I've been brought low,
who hasn't?
But ******* your eyes and see
how I stand whole and complete.
The years have caused me to bend
but nothing has broken me.

We are a multitude
of bad decisions.
A myriad of choices
which require revisions.
We are a cornicopia of coulda-beens
all wanting what could be.
If offered the genie's dilema
we'd change it all, wouldn't we?

We are hugging a spininng
ball of dirt and water
wrapped around a burning core
on a space ship with no rudder
and we close our eyes
and cross our fingers
and know, absolutely, we're on track
but the doubt still lingers.

When the universe exploded into being
the debris were set on their courses.
Like beads of rain water on glass
like rows of race horses.
And with the right math we could predict
where everything will land.
What then do we think of free will?
Is it just accidental cosmic sleight of hand?

I don't got answers, haven't picked a side.
Would that cancel choice?
Diminish those that have died?
Does it rob the world of song? Of voice?
My parents had a theory or they lied
I don't know. I leave it for you to decide.

I held you captive
in a chance photograph.
Tucked into a small
notebook filled with
page after page of tired
unfinished verse
I travelled with you.
Moved from end table
to locker to glove box
I carried your cage with me.
When I got lonesome
or things seemed too
difficult for one person
to bare, in those moments
I would take the photograph
from the little notebook
and I would absorb you.
The curve of your smile
the shape of your nose.
I swear it looked just like you,
except the eyes were wrong.
Usually there is a light there
that makes everything around
them brighter and better
and more important
but from the cage,
as a prisoner of time
trapped in just that one
singular moment,
it wasn't you anymore.
I couldn't push through
and live in the moment
with you.
I was hundreds of miles
from home
and horribly alone.
I had your photograph
and though I treasure
it still, there is no going back.
I had learned that
when it comes to prisons
where the bars really are
can be misleading.

I live in fear
I've said a little too much
or that once counted out
my deeds won't've been enough.
I feel tight awaiting release
coiled like a spring or rubber band.
Cocked like a shaking gun waiting
for input from an unsteady hand.
Now I know that I know what I am
but I worry that's the catch.
While everyone else unwound
I just continued to twist and stretch.
I don't know on what criteria
a human life is accounted
I measure and I weigh
but the summit is not mounted.
I wish that I believed
"Love will save us all!"
but I can't and I don't
and my spring is turning to fall.
Still, I am surrounded by love
and would do well to remember:
That this could be the criteria
on which human life is measured.

My whole life we've been
a generation about to collapse.
An abanboned cigarette burned
down to a cylinder of ash.
We get up each day
full of new aches and old hurtings
and we make our commutes
to chain ourselves up to our hauntings.
We find ourselves caught in forever.
Our fingers break, our nailbeds bleed
as we scratch at eternity. Stuck fast as flies
our bodies shake out sorrow and need.
We're preached body positivity
and self ******* care
by billionaires with no intent
to ever ******* share.
We look at heavily curated streams
of the lives of friends, who boast
their picture perfect weekends
and wonder what we could ever post.
Between work and sleep
we manage something like twenty-three.
That's hours a week we don't owe.
For less than a day you can find us free.
People scream at us to fix it
while giving no proffered solution.
The blue strong arm of the system
kills in the streets with no retribution.
We find no solution
from asking or starting fires.
We're just cast away
as criminals or as liars.
I'm not Superman, I don't have the answer
though I really wish I did.
But we aren't Kandor
safe behing glass or lid.
And the wind will find the cylinder
and scatter it to ash.
And just like my whole ******* life
we'll still be seconds from collapse.

I look for myself in fiction.
In music and in sport, too.
I look for flashes
of my green eyed reflection
in the words that friends choose.
I look for all the parts and pieces
of myself I claim to resent but
that I'm terrified to lose.
And when I find them
in the art you've left behind
I leave me in some small way
and in exchange
I keep it in my mind.
I feel myself disentangle
and fall unto the floor.
Left behind to worship at
the altar of the me
in your art I was looking for.
When I create I see myself
trapped inbetween the lines
and I hate him and wish him gone.
I don't want it to seem like mine.
That duality is ******
or maybe suicide
it drives me crazy
either way you decide.
I just want purity
in the things I do or make
I want people to see themselves
when they go looking
and leave parts and pieces I can take.

There are these things...

Things I don't know how to say.
There are things I can't articulate.
Things I never learned to speak.
Perhaps, lost along the way.
I've hated myself for so long
it's difficult to know if I can change.
I feel different some days but
don't know if it means I've
stopped or if I'm happier
but still hate myself the same.
That hate grew inward and festered.
It attached itself to my identity
and became who I am. Innate.
I want to get better. I do want to change.
I need to see improvement.
To somehow rise above my fate.
It's just that...
When certain feelings are too big
or are too much like pain
I bury them somewhere inside
and pretend they never came.
You watch me with those big eyes
and repeat the things I say
and I know I gotta fix it.
I know it's not a ******* game.
(Language!)
For you I make the effort
I try to find the crooked path
back to good, and healthy and sane.
I love you, little bean
more than I hate myself.
I love you more than it's
possible for me to say.
Kiddo, I hope you know.

It's just that...

There are these things...