the bleak reality of life
is giving spark to a dream
and one day waking up
inside a coffeeshop
in the city you love
but have begun to question

(once the doubt sets in, it aches small and grows and grows)

the magical backdrop,
the music and hipsters,
bikelanes and teetering mountaintops

you can barely grasp the
feeling you once knew so well

breathless expectancy
towering opportunity
a fire in your chest

what was safe was safe in the
unknown and the opportunity

two pennies and a peach soda
coffeeshop dreams and tattoo guns
brokenhearted like a nagging hangnail

the best feeling in the world is
being recognized in a crowd and
pulled into familiar arms

and drunken monologues,
nihilism and Nietzsche

fridge beer - it's in the fridge
***** looks from passerby
purple sunglasses and
a sleeve of mountaintops

mid-afternoon rush and strange men
wearing sports shoes
empty words and another good
day

there's never enough time to write as life is happening

these are just words and words,
for writing's sake
he told me to write about it
but maybe I can't.
I tried to jump past it -
the messy dreams and the
stark emotion each morning

(I hate waking up to my emotions, spending most of the morning putting them back where they belong...)