If I were to be a day of the week,
I would be a Tuesday

Not a Monday, bright and yellow
Understanding that today “there be dragons here”
and we must be Ready to conquer, ready to claim,
ready to fight

Not Wednesday, Orange and steady
Containing a consistency that reminds us
we can make it, we will make it

And not the vibrant green Thursday  
Full of promise, anticipation
And the hope of what’s to come

But nor am I the explosive Friday
Dark, and passionate, dedicated
To the thrill and fervor of life

Or a Silver Saturday
Slick and slippery with the idea
Of adventure but that holds no guarantees

Yet still I cannot be Sunday
Muted Gold with warm mornings
and laid back afternoons but always
With the lingering remembrance of tomorrow

No, I am Tuesday

I am faded red
I am the waiting day
The looked over bridge of
What’s now, what’s next
Stuck forever in some delicate limbo

I am the stepping stone
The illusive day floating in and out
Behind the scenes, behind the week
I am tuesday

Red black red black
There is nothing more

Traffic runs endless through the gutter Styx

This city is an empty vessel
With mass every day
Triumphantly awaiting its own pointless decay

there is a certain liminality to airplanes
even the ones now fixed to the ground,
all museum tours and rot held at bay,
for a while.
yearning for the strain of metal,
a voice calling out safety procedures
(don't tamper with or disable the smoke detector in the lavatory),
and someone who loves them to come back to brush
knowing hands, since gone to claws, over their instrument panels.

in the air there doesn't seem to be a good reason
for planes not to tilt,
tilt down inexorably,
till they kiss the earth again.
all crumpled aluminum and fire
and a small black box
to tell those we left on land
some of how it happened.
I can tell myself about physics and engineering,
about this being my second flight today,
and about how (if nothing else) I made it onto this plane.
the turbulence pays me no mind.

touching down, touching ground, it hesitates.
there's a ghost of movement still.
a waiting. a breath.
the rush of air and engines,
not gone so much as paused,
halted only for a moment.
I am a little afraid of flying
but I'm more afraid of moving on
moving past this moment,
all muscled grace and limbo,
a portion of earth held up in sky.
then we land and walk to baggage claim
while behind us the airplane-
the airplane holds.

Life's your own boomerang
Shoots you forward
Flings you back
Its no wonder with this lurch
That im a crippled insomniac
Its whack
How i take a few steps forward
Only to get smacked
In the head
Maybe i dont have enough street cred
On this path of Life
Its no wonder im a **** head
Cuts the anxiety like a knife
Couldnt wake up from this limbo
Couldnt fall asleep to dream
Only stuck in this middle space
Gotta survive by a solo team
So ill go on shooting forward
remember where i return
Makes the next wound a bit easier
Less strong of a burn
Doesnt mean im going backwards
Just means i must revert
To this origin
This oneness
And my mode of thinking
I must convert.

Every night I dream of swimming, but this time it was different. I’ve been caught inside a wave, I begin to drown. My legs are tied to an anchor and I’m finding my way closer to the bottom of the sea. I yell for help, knowing no one can hear my cries. I begin to look up and see the people I love watch me as I suffocate wanting to gasp for air, but life swallows me whole. Every morning at 3 am, I am at war with my mind while you are asleep. Balancing between life and death searching for a way out of limbo. But the waves get bigger, and the tides come in harder. I remember the one time I went to the beach, and all I ever wanted to do is be the king of the ocean. So I built sand castles to the best of my knowledge, conquering my skills. But the tides of the waters continued to crush my creations. Knowing this would happen, I still became frustrated unaware that I was supposed to be learning a lesson about life. Where life was the ocean, turning into a tsunami and I was the castle being torn down and taken back. I begin to drown again. And when my lungs fill with water, it feels like a knife being jammed into my ribs and I am bleeding. I start to become cold and numb. I run to think that maybe I deserve this, maybe I am fault so I begin to give up. In that very moment I notice my position continues to get deeper, I gasp for my last breath and I am only letting the salt water run through my veins drowning me from the inside out. And I am being crushed by the pressure, it becomes unbearable. This is my life, everyday I suffer with this, and I know that you will not be able to walk a mile at the bottom of the sea in my shoes. Every night before I go to sleep, I tell myself it is okay to let go and be done, but I cannot leave the ones I love to suffer at the expense of my doing and my wrongs. I will not stand to be that selfish. My eyes begin to close and I knew this was it. My days are over, this time I was not waking up from this dream. But then something happened, and I was not prepared. As soon as I let go, I let God. Tears begin to rush down my face. He gave me breathe once more, giving me life again. Letting me know that He will not let His creation go to waste that easily. He told me that He did not create me to give up, but believe and live by Him. He lifted me up and showed me the way back. He taught me to love myself, and to never feel alone and left filling me in that I am never alone and that He will always be there with me. In a blink of an eye, He was gone but there at the same time. Now, I do not dream about swimming anymore but flying, wings spread out knowing I will not fall, because as long as I believe and never let go I can conquer it all.

Since I've left my body have I since gone on a better way?
In this mess of nothingness, and don't get me wrong,
I assume all fault
is there any good at all that I could save?
What more am I than a hunk of meat
who fills its holes with food and drink
and drugs and barely thinks past any day but today?
I'm nothing.

Life is the truest paradox,
Go ahead, and give it some thought.

This Waiting Place



The can of still is entirely sick.

Windows shatter and trucks collide

Threatens the over, yet becomes the not

Of which, of one, can you speak for?

.............I’ve never felt this way before.

Because glass gives reflections until it

Breaks.

Give me the pieces, the shards, the dust.

Let me take what I can take and walk away

With the shame of fault, the guilt of unknowing.

since analyzing the bodies won’t bring them back.

Limbo of shock or grey of wanting.

Since the can of answers can be given to the dead.


...

Viktor Aurelius read four of my poems on Whispers in the Dark Radio, a horror poetry show.