Let's make a list of all
the things I've failed to be.
We'll start with successful
and work back toward infinity.
If wasted potential could
be shaped like stone or clay
I'd be a pit fit as a source
that'd last until the very last day.
From the very bottom
I've scaled toward the middle
and along the way fallen
in stature and grace, just a little.
But still I'm on the front lines
fighting for the American dream
my hours consumed by employers
my words lost in the scream.
I got broken bones rattling through
me that never quiet properly set
I'll probably die of blood poisoning
or some other kinda self neglect.
I'm supposed to follow up on conditions
but can't afford to lose the day
I'm supposed to love myself better
but no one else ever did, anyway.
I'm not supposed to write these words
men shouldn't burden with complaints.
I'm just supposed to shut up
don't tug on these cumbersome restraints.
I know you want me to prize myself
more than I really try or do.
You guys want me to love myself
but I only ever learned how to love you.
I've taken all you see and love in me
and I've put them in this letter.
I'd mail it to myself today,
but maybe tomorrow is better.

Commands and demands shouted
down bloodlines in dead languages
carrying an urgency matched
in intensity only by the obscurity
of the meaning lost on me.
I've been a distant third since
before anyone else was in the race,
measured, forgotten, denied
easy to ignore or to replace.
Love and acceptance always seemed
the unattainable golden ring
born in the hands of others
but just beyond my own reach
I'd make my way without help
or affection. Fixated on fighting
the monsters of the dark
that everyone else had light enough
to keep away, until the same
light inside you also seemed
to keep me at bay.
Without the shared warmth
of the crowd I grew used to
breathing smoke as the venom
of jealousy in my stomach
bubbled and burned away.
Snapping loose the hanging
icicle barbs around my heart
became a task too great
and now the path in is covered
by a near impenetrable gate.
I don't know what others feel
they are owed, by virtue of
being born into this place,
but I've learned to expect nothing
because when I tried to
give you my love
Nothing is what you gave.
There are echoes of you
in my pumping blood
but you've hidden your heat
from me.
You've filled all around you
with what you have and
what they'll stand to have you be
but you've taken in incremented
turns from me.
Leaving me hard, perhaps,
but also empty by degree.

When it's over will tired
bones rest below the surface
in dry dirt and clay or
will they be compelled, once more,
to rise with the dawn on
forever unfinished work?
And which would we prefer?
Because tired and beaten
is a scene we've rushed toward
eternal silence to be done with
but the sacrifice is tomorrow
and tomorrow and tomorrow.
And sure, trudging uphill
through pain filled rooms
with congealed blood pushing
in our viens is hard
but the sun may still rise
on the sweat of your brow.
And when it's over will
there still be love?
Will there still be need?
And what of the stiffness in
our backs and the sharp
stabbing looseness in our knees?
When the time comes do
we just stop or is there some
idea shared of what might
come next?
Would that be tragic or
would it be best?
When it's finally all over
will they wake in mourning
and live in slowly healing
lament?
And will he, after looking
at the total collection of
my life's works and worth
still respect me in the morning?

Leave it to Linklater films
to figure out what life is
we're rivers of blood seperated
forever from the greater ocean
we are constantly told we're
supposed to be a part of
and we walk around this
spinning ball of dust
and historically significant bones
wondering why we feel so
******* alone all the time.
On a sub-molecular level our
surface bends against the
surface of all other things
meaning, on a quantum level,
we never actually touch each other.
We sort of repel, in fact.
Maybe that's why we try so hard
to write ourselves into each other.
Can you feel me, in these words?
Do they stir in you the same
things I feel them move inside of me?
In this way, with text and grammar,
syntax and purpling context,
do you feel the bumps raise on
your flesh almost as if in
anticipation of the moment,
after the strings have swelled
and a valley of sweet percusive
harmonies have laid bare the
beating heart of the piece
you know a crash of cymbals must
be on the way?
Does hair stand on end on
the back of your neck when
you read, like a whisper in your
ear of late summer time regret
for feelings left unsaid or said
only in jest as the days grow shorter
and the time for action disappears,
at the words, in sequence, that
I've chosen to seranade you with?

Leave it to folk bands to figure
out what love is.
You and I are running at a sprint
against the wind toward the eternal
tomorrow and we've got no
idea how to engage the brakes.
We're on Barry's cosmic treadmill
without a clean understanding
of escape velocity that we need
to get off and go back.
Can we go back?
And inside our clothes
they will find only regret and
our time smoothed bones.
I'm workin' on it
I swear I am.
After walking through a lifetime
of doors it becomes hard to look
at how few are still open
and suicidal, in a sense,
to open many of them back up.
We're very near the top
in this endless climb.
This will not be a satisfying conclusion,
just a landing between flights of stairs.

I've not become bolder
with age,
but so much more afraid.
I don't miss being young
not really,
I miss having options before me.
We both know what most of
our days
will be between now and the grave
and for some reason we pretend
to ourselves
and to the world that it's okay.

It is not okay. It just isn't.

But there, as the bard would say,
is the rub.
One days have become coulda beens
and the ******* tomorrows are
no longer endless
but corralled into a very small pen.
I don't use a rearview anymore
looking back hurts.
The world's changing again.
How many more times in just
my single lifetime
will we leave people behind?

I'm so sick of playing games.

Games that last a lifetime and that
nobody ever even wins.
Games that count out our lives in
color coded swaths of angry nonsense
like daytime television refugees
until we've bitten our nails all the way
down to the quick
and have nothing but quitting smoking
to hold above the marquee with
any kind of pride
Of course I'll need to explain briefly
to my son what a marquee was
our history is wholesale
but much of it was priced out
of our ability to purchase it.
Old tv shows streaming
on services like new content is
judged against modern values
because finally time failed
to matter and only content may rule.
I rant in hope of caesura breaking
into my random line
with finality and meaning.

There is no depth. This was not a discussion.

You fall backwards and
slide into the earth unbidden.
The contours shaped to a tee
around your every line and curve.
You fade and slip without remorse
or resistance to be found or given.
You may wonder why
I smile as you snarl and venom.
You've spent years throwing
dirt on my name
to match the petty and
filthy needs you crave.
Go ahead, dear.
I've spent this time
digging you a perfect grave.
You made poor calls
and I've made mistakes.
We've been together when
we ought to have hit the brakes.
You've considered me nothing
more than target or fodder
but this isn't a fight, love.
This is a ******* slaughter.

In youth I followed bitterness
and poverty down the
95 corridor and finally found
perfect gasoline rainbows and
humid sudden summer storms.
I found your wide, wonderful smile
and freckles and love and
so, so much more.
I know you fell long ago
and have built up around
your landing spot a lifetime
of interconnected infrastructure
and much of it has lost the
sentimental spark it had
when, so many years ago,
you first erected it. I know.
Maybe now, so far down this
road you met me on,
the feeling is more distant
inside you than once it was.
Changed. Mutated. More
a memory of great passion
more than a physiological pull.
There is comfort in my doings
and stability in my works.
Fond familiarity in my features
and that is enough for me.
All you need do is love me
in the echo left behind
from your fall.
I can live as ghosts do,
on half recalled longings
and in the phrases and inside jokes
in the little smiles you give me
like when rereading a favorite
book or laughing at a scene
from a movie you're fond of
in spite of repeat viewings.
I don't require any more.
Stretch your wings into the flames
of the pit, my love.
You've landed, long ago
and set about your calling.
I'm still lost in you, as ever
and I'm still falling.