You once asked me how I made sense of anything.
Most people think in terms of files and boxes,
where they store the contents of their head.
I have arrows that point up-ways and down-ways,
left-ward and right-ward. The things that I can deal
with disappear into vapor and the things I can’t stay
chasing each-other around—names, faces, and words
that are stuck—impassible, unmovable,
and what I am against such a force like that?
I don’t even know what the hell I’m supposed to be doing—
you keep telling me that if I applied myself I’d be great,
but I don’t want to be great because great people
always die terrible tragic deaths because that’s just
how the story’s supposed to end and all I want is to be
un-confused and not uncertain and straight and narrow
on the straight and narrow, but I can’t because paths
don’t work like that, not real ones, they’re twisty
and uncontrollable and I just keep going until I don’t know
where I am anymore, but it isn’t Kansas, except I don’t
know that because I’ve never been to Kansas,
although I don’t think Kansas has the monsters that crawl
around in my head or the skeletons buried in my eyes,
but it doesn’t matter because I’ve got a road to walk and
I won’t even try and make sense of any of it, ever,
because like a dead great person who died a terrible tragic
death once said, that way lies madness.

I’m tired and I don’t want to be alone anymore
so take me away from home,
away from broken bottle dreams
and a despair I can call my own.
Exhaustion creeps in,
deeper than my bones, something so cold
it settles in my soul like an old house
that’s been around since ashes to ashes
we all fall down.
I’m tired and I don’t want to be home anymore,
so take me away from here because clearly,
this isn’t very healthy; this isn’t helping me find a cure
to my incurable disease
called Psychiatry for Free,
in which various persons will call me
at four o’clock in the AM
begging me talk
them out of a hanging
by a lynch mob of ones self.
I guess it really can’t be helped,
I’ll just have to get out myself.
I’m so tired, and I don’t want to go anymore,
So don’t bothering taking me away,
because I’ll have deleted this messages
and you’ll again be blind forevermore.

God blesses your hands, takes them both
and lifts you so you can stand.
This is your homecoming,
a long time in coming,
72 years, eleven months, and one week
you’ve been running this race, so I think
we can afford a little grace when you sprint
the last mile, so strong and sweet
into your Father’s open arms.
And you know those angles leading you away
ain’t got nothing on you, not even reasons for you
to stay. And they’ll be trying hard, cause they know
they haven’t got a thing compared to your heart.
This is your homecoming,
a final graduation, a certification you’ve done
right by life. And we’ll still be here singing
sacred Somns from the earth you once called
your own, waiting to see you smile in the wind
even though your gone.  And we are so happy
for you, but we’re still human, and selfish,
so we’re a little sad and regretful too.
But we won’t ever stop missing you,
cause this is your homecoming,
and the Lord says it’s time to
go along. And when you see us again
you’ll be so proud, cause we’re going to
keep on, and we’re going be strong,
and we’re going give this life every last bit of fight
we’ve got just like you did. So we’ll let you go,
for a little while, for your homecoming.
Cause someday we’ll be coming home too.

Another Saturday night
spent breaking up bar fights,
and fixing things
that have nothing to do with me.
I wonder at how we got here.
These sleepless nights are killing me,
dreaming of your broken bottle sins.
I know there was a beginning,
but I can’t see the end.
I feel your dependence like a weight
stacked high with all of your tonics,
sour beer, your wine, your gin.
God, I am just so tired,
I feel broken, bent, used
and used again.
I can’t stand it when you call me “friend”
like I was something more to you
than a person to vent to.
I’ve always been the person you went to
because I know you better than the floor
you see more and more of everyday
passed out over like a dead man.
You wish you were a dead man.
I almost do, too.
At least that way I wouldn’t have to listen,
listen to you, your life,
everything I hate about you.
But I won’t say a word.
I’ll just pick up your world, your bottle
and all the pieces of pretentious bravado
you dropped when you walked
through that front door.
I hate my job, but I hate you more.

The Before
You are told to steel yourself.
You are told not to hesitate,
Not to waste precious, valuable time.
If they look dead or dying, do not think.
Leave them and move on.
Do not look into their eyes.
You are told to steel yourself.
Nothing could have prepared you
For what lie behind those white doors.
They told you,
This is War.

The Beginning
You find time is relevant, here in the ward.
It is hard to distinguish between used-to-be white walls
And never-again white floors.
Your world is white and red.
Time is measured by lost arms/legs/death.
Time looks upon you and knows,
This is War.

The Middle
You know you’ve been here too long
When there are more ghosts in the room than people.
More soldiers are wheeled in,
Your breath catches.
These are not soldiers, these are boys.
These are children.
The blue eyes looking up at you fade,
In his hand there is a red ribbon.
You cannot tell if it started out that way.
The ghost reminds you,
This is war.

The End
The ground is quaking again.
Your heart hammers in your chest
Because it is too close, so close,
But not close enough.
Quiet suddenly you can no longer hear,
Not the screams or the shattering,
The sounds of the world falling apart and landing at your feet,
They are drowned out by an eerie white noise
You will forever associate with the word
Aftermath.
No one has moved.
They are either dead or in shock.
Everything is breaking and you cannot quiet shake that this,
This is war.

The After**
You open the only door, the only escape.
Beyond those four walls
Is the nothingness left behind by the absolute
Obliteration of your universe.
This is not Death, you think.
You stare Death in the face everyday/hour/minute
And beat it back with brute force and titanium will.
No, you think. No.
This is war.
This is war.

I don’t want near your pre-k rhyming stanzas,
your backstabbing friends, your sky-scraper tall tales,
your hopelessirrevocableunrequited “love”, or your non-beating heart.
I don’t want to know why it breaks when your significant other of one week
ends your relationship with a three worded grammatically incorrect sentence
without punctuation.
You aren’t a magazine and I do not want a subscription to your issues.
You want to cry? Fine, but don’t do it here.
I wouldn’t touch your “Feelings” with a ten foot poll,
not your heart, not your head and most certainly not your soul.
So don’t ask. I might actually punch you in the face.
Find somebody who can stand reading the words
“u r mi luv an now I h8 u” more than once.
You want expression? Go find an art room.
This is the English language. There are rules.
You don’t like rules? They don’t like you either,
but they’re the reason you’ll still be alive when you’re thirty
and not in the bottom of some ditch.
Don’t come at me with your this and that,
your purtty, purrty words or your excessive, use, of, commas,
because I will tear you apart. And it will hurt.
You want to whine? Do it somewhere else. I couldn’t care less for your 2-d crisis.
I am not your mother. Don’t make the mistake of thinking otherwise.
Tell me “but-but-but he said please” or “my heart is a dark pit of shriveled mushrooms”
and I will jam a pencil in your forehead.
You will probably cry (and bleed. A lot).
I will laugh.
You want to brag you cut yourself?
I want to cut you too.
Sit down, shut up, and stop.
You’ll find yourself loudest in the quiet.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
Think, listen, hear, see.
Are you still alive?
Can you still hear me?
Is it still the end of the world?
I don’t want your problems.
I want your quiet.

I’m sorry,
he’s gone,
and we’re all just a little more than lost.
But all I can think about
are imaginary summers that would never end,
and pretending to be something we’re not.
And I’m sorry you’re something I’m not
because I’m still dreaming
of climbing trees and skinned knees,
and this has left us all a tiny bit broken,
a tiny bit confused,
and maybe a tiny bit special, too.
Oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry
if it felt like I was leaving you
but you were taking secret pathways
I could never view.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry
if this is going to mean nothing to you,
because I hate every second
and every minute that we lose,
and God, I miss him too,
but it’s not like this is something
we ever saw coming,
and I’m sorry
for being less to you than stunning,
and hey, could all the memories say actions you didn’t mean?
This will always be a mess of you and me
(and Him too, but he’s here no longer,
He left us behind to wonder
“If the past is who we are,
why aren’t we with Him six feet under?”
Like three to two to one, and then there were none).
And I don’t know how many times I’m going to say this,
(scream it, repeat it, break it down and beat it)
I’m sorry, I’m sorry,
I love you, and God, I’m sorry.