It’s late, getting late
I need to sleep – sleep is good
Sleep is short but dark
the bed all for myself
generating my own warmth
My own light of day
I’m trying to make it stay
But some evenings
Not just you
but all of it seems
to have gone away
And I am just
the grey fibry
Residue of that
bitter drink of expectation
Alone at the bottom of the glass
‘til the next getaway

i'm unmedicated,
but when you fell asleep between your glass of Merlot and the outside of my left leg,
I was sedated.

my bones never enjoyed saturation, or even understood how someone else could experience something similar; they just reflect raindrops like a two-way window pane.

now, it all hits me in brief, powerful bursts like a short-range shotgun blast and in long waves like electroconvulsive therapy that gives you painful memories instead of making them go away.

i hadn't felt anything in years but even brick walls have soft spots. Even spiders can abandon webs and become kings.* Even someone so full of nothing could feel like the new year wouldn't bring more pills and that love could fly without restricted access areas or delays due to what they claim is the weather but is really pain being drained in the wrong sink, one either too puke-stained or too leaky.

i finally realized that color television was a worthy investment. I can recognize how much brighter black and white seemed when you gave me what I perceived to be the inside of your arteries: red, black and blue humming along at a pace that felt synonymous with what I perceived to be equilibrium.

i am no longer sedated

"You can't fix all your sad and pathetic problems by writing another ****** poem."

Well, I can try.

If I wear a gold chain
In my hair
Instead of around my neck
Am I gangster?
Stereotypes
****.

my sadness knows no love
my sadness knows no fear
my sadness knows no pain
my sadness knows no end
my sadness knows no happy endings
my sadness knows no sleep

my sadness knows lies
my sadness knows death
my sadness knows scars
my sadness knows eulogies
my sadness knows 2am voices
my sadness knows 4am shadows

my sadness - knows how to hit every Self-Destruct button and watch me disintegrate into a million and one pieces, and then hits the buttons again

when i was young
i wanted to be a
fire fighter
then i became afraid of fires

then when i was older
i wanted to be a
minister
then i became afraid of religion

then just yesterday
i wanted to
wake up
but then i became afraid of my alarm.