If you are in charge
you will end up hurting
your own soul.

What if there was an alternate universe
where I would have known that
mistake would have been made
and avoided it?

What if there was an alternate universe
where I just didn't care at all
and that everything I am now
just never happened?

What if there was an alternate universe
where at every point in time
I was positioned
slightly to the left?

I think I'll fall asleep in an hour
I think I'll be dead in a week
I'm sick of bitter arrogance-
it isn't something unique.
In fact it's kind of grotesque
the way I choose to progress
it's like i'm slowly
cutting from my
feet
and stopping
at my chest.
Do you get it yet?
Do you find it hard to understand?
Am I not what you were looking for
or do I need to be better than I am?
I'm only asking.
I think that's fair.
But then again I'm getting acquainted with
despair.
I tell myself it isn't real.
I try to believe that you care.
But all that goes out the window when
I see you are not there.
It's unusual;
the way I trip
over myself.
Therapists and teachers
always said I needed help.
But I didn't believe them.
Ignorant was how I felt.
Trapped, corner,
isolated-
I was ****** with what was dealt.
Just know that I didn't keep it.
I just walked right on out.
And for every moment
I've been defeated-
at least I wasn't

someone else.

God! Bring me down a trail of violets -
Bright violets for my love who drinks too much.
For we felt no fault in evenings spent dancing to old songs,
writhing, primordial dancers, our shadows burnt onto the rocks behind by fire
the air gliding around us like water in a stream.
We are heavy things. Our bones are filled with blood
and when we grasp eachother we rip the stems apart
And oily petals seep from underthings.
Dionysus!
Red, thick hot oily petals
Rose petals, broken from the bud
That weep for us, and die for us, as we lie
Clasped together like thorns
Elpenor!
Too late to continue our travels together
I will come back and bury you, I promise.

I most certainly did know Joe
He was my friend you know.
I knew him for a decade or so.
I always enjoyed the Joe Show.

Joe was rather different,
Sometimes even diffident.
He got in some predicaments,
But I was his instrument.

I called it the Joe Show because
Joe was sort of like Santa Claus.
When he came into a room
He would disspell all the gloom.

It was hard to outshine Joe;
The coolest guy you could know.
He was the best of friends, so
I should have told you, Joe don’t go
But I was clueless, I didn’t know.

All of the good times we once knew
All of the silliness we went through.
So many memories of me and you.
Who can predict what fate will do?

Joe made me feel special,
Like I was living in a serial.
He was usually amenable.
Sometimes ministerial.

Now I have no more time to go
I never told you I’d miss you so.
I just couldn’t because I didn’t know.
I never got to tell you, Joe don’t go.