What if there was no moving on?
Once in our hearts and never gone?
What if the hurt was forever?
We always haunt our every endeavor?
The tears only ever seconds
from falling.
Our hearts moved one minute
and the next stalling.
What if that ******* song
must always be avoided?
And no matter how hard you try
you always feel exploited?
That bar open to the public
but forever closed to you?
And it always hurts too much to open
up and let in someone new?
What if, once we get broken,
we never get to be complete again?
What, seriously, what are we supposed
to do then?
Would we work harder?
Fight longer?
Or would we be more careful
with the words we say?
More open to seeing things
the other way?
Or would we lock ourselves away?
Why bother trying if it always
ends the same ******* way?
Better to lock ourselves behind
doors another day.
Better to be alone
than torn open and left on display.

He would open
The Amazing Spider-man
and climb inside.
Swinging the urban
canyons of Midtown
and never noticing that
it was much cleaner than
those same streets were
only hours earlier
when he walked fast
through them.
He fought the bad guys
and laughed at all
of Spidey's quips.
There was the constant
background drone of
screaming and the
constant threat of real
violence, undetected
even by Spider-man's
wonderful Spider sense.
He landed neatly next to
his hero and rescued the
poor, innocent New Yorker
and he prided himself on
the restraint he had to
never ask the only question
he ever had inside himself.
He never even said why.
He closed the book and
crawled into bed and curled
up, his eye on the space between
the edge of the door and
the doorjam, where the light
would be when it started.
His breath was shakey
his knuckles white.
Inside him he held the question
"Why won't anyone save me?"

There is a beauty in
fixing what is broken.
In the act and art of
finding and mending.
We break so much,
we really do.
We're in constant need
of you to make whole again
what we have rent and ruined.
Just one more job.
Always another. And another.
Burn out those daylight hours
and drive home in the
twisting tracer lines of
Van Gough like light.
Eat your lonely dinner
cold from the microwave
where she left it and
live in quiet terror of the
night you open the door
and find nothing there.
That will be the warning
stones bouncing at your feet
before the avalanche of
your life falling apart.
We break so much,
we really do.
And yes, your tired hands
have proved the beauty
in the ability, in the process
by which you mend
but there is beauty in
the masterpiece we make
before it is broken.
There is art in the act
of not breaking a whole
and perfect thing.
One more night,
you hope it lasts
one more every night.
But you know, even
with care the machines
will break down.
It's what they do.
You know what happens
when they're neglected, too.
Of course you do;
You are in repairs.

He sailed to sleep
on oceans of bitter
angry tears wept
into his pillow
across years of pain
and neglect.
The only time they
noticed him was
when they hurt him.
He didn't know why
he would sit on
the floor and look
up at them and smile
but he always did.
Like he missed them.
Loved them.
The smiles would
sink in his sad little
ocean of weeping
until on the other side
a broken and bitter
man emerged.
He never cried.
He barely felt anything.
This man, lithe from
dodging emotional
connections and clean
friendly physical contact,
seemed more than just
put together. He seemed
superhuman in his way.
He was special. He was funny.
No one could hurt him
or think around his
sometimes cruel machinations.
Inside he wished he
could look up with a smile
and be treasured and loved.
He wished his life had
been softer, less hungry and
much less afraid.
He wished he didn't have
to be strong and cynical.
He wished he was wrong
about things more often.
Wished he could afford
to be, in fact.
He wished most of all
that he could die.

He doesn't know where
the line is between
discipline and abuse.
He's so afraid to get
anywhere near it
that he worries he's
becoming a brand new
kind of bad parent
in the generational saga
of bad parents he has
always been a part of.

The dreams of dead men
are absent of purpose
Dreams lose meaning when
living stops.
Dreams may not
die, but the same
is not true for
you and I.
The dreams left behind
by centuries of the dead
suddenly become empty.
They are hollowed out
and meaningless as soon
as the living turn cold.
Dead men are stones
and the mountain ranges
that define our world
see nothing and think nothing.
Land does not dream
but we hang purpose on
things.
There is no meaning
in the words of the dead.
There is power, perhaps,
but the dream behind the words
is for the living to define.
Stones and bones
and empty words.
We build on the dead,
raising shared visions
into being.
We build on the dead.
We should be in no hurry
to follow them.

Dragged bleeding across Two thousand seven hundred and seventy-miles
a dozen times
before we met.
I saw a tornado rip
the roof away from
my shelter once.
I learned to sleep sitting
up straight with city sirens
or pounding rain
as a constant refrain
in the back seats of cars
we lived out of.
I saw the open vastness
of the Grand Canyon
and heard the gentle
weeping of the ocean as it
met the rocky New England shore.
I found tree canopy darkened
groves, thickets, woodlots and stands
by streams and creeks
brooks and rills
and wondered in the almost
shelter of the forest if any other
person had ever stood there.
In cities I've danced on streets
and eaten exotic meats
and smelled the densely packed
cultures breathing on their feet.
On mountain peaks and deserts
I've encountered extremes
and bow before nature, esteemed.
Down highways and roads
that crisscross the map like veins
I've felt this country heave
and I've never been the same.
Off the map are memories
of a time before you.
A bygone era when
I was a different man.
Did you know me as a traveller?
Could you sense the roadwear?
I apologize for the damage.
Like most well travelled
things I've been battered
and beaten and left
broken beyond repair
on the way here from there.
I've got some use left in me,
I'm pretty sure, at least.
Now, I've met you I can
feel my roots plant deep.
Now you're beside me at night
I can finally close my eyes and sleep.

I wonder sometimes
what I'll miss
when I'm gone forever
and there's still...this.
Long past the second death
the last time you say my name
will the world still turn?
Will anything be the same?
Running around on earth
people with my blood
in miniscule quantities
long after the flood.
Children's children I'll never know
doing jobs that maybe aren't yet
and all the time I'm dead
all of my doings done. Settings set.
It's hard to picture nothing
we don't have a reference
We ignore it, outright, best we can
pretend it's a preference.
Anasi speaks gently
as he wraps the fly
"The end isn't real.
All endings are a lie.
The story keeps on spinning
long, long after you die."