You rejected your children
Like they were not real men
Like they never had been
Born.
You were seldom with them
Dispatched so little wisdom
But yet plenty of criticism
And scorn.

It’s ten o’clock
Do you know
Where your children are?
Could you find them
By eleven o’clock
Even if you got into your car?

Your life was more important
Than any of your descendants
So they suffered the sentence
Of neglect.
They had to grow on their own
Because they were so alone
In a parental twilight zone,
No respect.

It’s ten o’clock
Do you know
Who your children are?
Did your parenting
Hurt them enough
To leave permanent scars?

Your partying mattered more.
What else is a person’s life for?
And nobody is keeping score
But the kid.
And if anyone should happen by
You can always makeup a lie
Just let them be fool enough to try
What we did.

It’s ten o’clock
Do you know
Where your children are?
Could you find them
By eleven o’clock
Even if you got into your car?

I’m told to let loose,
To let what loose?
“On the dance floor… on the dance floor,
let loose on the dance floor, Owen”

But… But…
To let loose is to lose;
to lose control.
Going “where the music leads”
is a new, scary place.

Everything must fit, must make sense;
Moving, swaying, ‘dancing,’ don’t.
What is there to gain
besides a common sense of…
awk
wardness?

“You’ll dance your way closer
to each other” (somehow).
But why grow closer in body?
Why not grow closer in mind?
Let us talk, dig beyond the surface.
“May I have this conversation?”

I’ll share my thoughts, my self,
and you’ll share yours.
So it will go, finding its own rhythm:
sometimes slow, methodical;
sometimes quick, passionate;
always common, enthralling.

Only then, with our intellects engaged,
engaged with each other’s,
can we truly dance:
the beautiful dance of the mind.

There is a
Threat
Outside of bed.
Beyond amber red
Sunsets
People of the night
Come out.
Awaken by the smell
Of repugnant restrooms
And *****.
Last memory of
The inside of
A toilet.
Brought alive by
the frightening
sunrise.
Blinding all
who hid.

Desperate kisses in a crowded room.
Murmurs of a promise into an ear.
A room full of people all moving as one,
                                            Breathing as one.
One being: hot and sweaty.
Loose minds and even looser bodies.
Trembling lips, swift hands,
Hot.
        Breathless.
                           Blurry.
Moments of reckless love.
                                                  Lust.
Not­hing to gain.
                             Everything to lose.
Nothingness. Loneliness.
The tragic weight of an empty heart.
Aching for a touch. Touches.
Lusting for strangers across a dark room.
Blind. Deaf. Mute
We wait.
                  We wait.
                                          We wait.
Finding solace in the empty gesture of lust instead of love.
      Chained to dumb hope.
                                                   Chained.
                        
                           Forever.

Smiling,
blood in
teeth.
Eyes large and
crazed.
pupils dilated
like large black
holes
swallowing
images of
others acting the
same-
wild, intoxicated, and
sublime.