isn't it time

for penitence?

I just forget everything

and don't talk to anyone

except for you, dear Lord, you are my ball and chain

having died and come back again I get to look back
watching old movies of myself,
sleeping last night off, leg twitching
dreaming of moving along a motorcade of immanent death

one by one getting flat tires, running out of gas, suddenly the battery
dies

I get out of the car, look around, and see, to my surprise

a loved one's love looking back at me, twisting in the wind, empty, alone, drunk,
its my father or mother lifting my brother or sister from the back seat to the front, carelessly driving, ceaselessly swerving

towards the waterway

if it wasn't for the guardrail,  we'd all be dead

time is a ritual now, and it hurts to come back to life, to feed the living,
to get dressed in day-old church clothes, to hit back, as one sneers at being sneered at, I pick up the Daily and skim the headlines, Lost and All Alone, A Stranger Takes a Dive, toss the rag and head to work, fixing to lie to my boss about being sick, about tasting olives, about who I am.

When no one else was there to save me,
it was.
It always wraps me in its warmth,
Listens to my every sob,
Pats me in sympathy and comfort.
It's been my lifelong friend.

Most kids are afraid of the dark,
But really there's no need.
Darkness has always been my friend

she was just a usual college girl at a glance,
look closer and you will see how her eyes dead
her lips dry with wounds all over and they are still red

one day she took a writing class because
she had nowhere to go

there was this one time the white-haired guy
with fatherly smile who called himself a professor,
raised one of the students' work and complimented
the suicide ending of the main character

he read it and she thought how it was true,

but then everyone started writing about
depression and self-loathing and
cutting yourself
biting your lips
clawing your cheeks
and ended with someone's hanging or choking in pills

she asked one of them who had written so,

'have you ever stood over a bridge
and your legs just felt like they were
going to betray you and every ounce of faith
you ever had in everything you thought you believed in?'

when she saw the strange look pointed at her,


she knew she was talking to a wrong person.

the word home
only exists within
the comforts of you
in my arms