I cry these days
When I read positive news
Something shatters in me
And I think it is hope
Apathy has become a bedfellow
An unwanted lover loitering nearby
I feel myself falling apart, alone
My eyes find dark space
Settling there, trying to disappear
My bones grinding into the ground
Until rooted fingers born from their shavings
Grip my lungs, squeezing tighter and tighter
And my life screeches from chapped lips

I've never told you,
But I've loved you for years.
I know you don't feel the same,
But I always hoped that somehow
You would fall in love with me too.

I never minded waiting
Just being around you was enough,
But these days, you've become so distant
I wonder if you even care at all.
Even when I was drowning in my own darkness,
I answered your calls and listened to every problem you had.
And then, when I needed someone, I reached out to you,
But you ignored every single plea for help.

Now, my heart is slowly dying
And I don't know how to stop it or who to tell.
With its final fading beats it clings to my love for you,
But even that is slowly fading.
And somehow, I feel it's all my fault.

“  Don’t ask me how I’ve been
unless you’re prepared.

Truth is, I haven’t been great, but that’s
predictable.   “

I’m not even looking at her anymore.
Just staring at the ceiling, this deadpan expression carved into my stone face.

She asks me if I need anything.

I just laugh.
Bitter, cruel.
This is past the breaking point.

“  No, no.
It’s too late.

You’re too late.  “

Lounging, today, on Your back porch
I saw America's men
Holding their tiki torches
Toward all they had been

I saw all of America's men
Wade angrily out into the icy upper bay waters
Toward all they had been
Through the tears of their mothers and daughters

Wading out into the icy waters
Holding their tiki torches
Through the tears of their mothers and daughters
Lounging, half-drowned, on Lady Liberty's back porch

There is too much happening
Too much to care about
Too much to fight for
All worthy causes
But the biggest fight of all
Is to be empathetic
In this apathetic world

There ain't nothing wrong
with fighting, son.

It scares the children, sure,
but so, too, would anything
we try to shield them from.

Fighting fortifies the lively
as much as it destroys
the ignorant and apathetic.

Therefore protect your mind
against those poisons, and
purge them from others
when necessary.

I

am

bottomless


this gaping
maw

place my heart
vacated

I am
devoid

and resonance has
deserted me

this is a lonely
place to be




inside myself


.