I think I’m rotting out
like driftwood floating
with the waves, bashing
again and again against
the pier

with each impact I lose
some of myself, maybe
just a splinter or an old
piece of bark, but slowly
I’m disappearing

this, I think, is how all
things die: bit by bit by
bit while all the world
goes on

death then is not an end
but a forgetting, the slow
drain of interest until
the pulse of memory
falls silent

looking out at the ocean
I wonder how much of
me has already floated
away

write without talking
there’s no art in that.
talk when you talk
not when you
write.

they don’t care.
they don’t, can’t, won’t hear.
because words are not a voice
and poetry is just an illusion.

the paper will feel nothing
as you tattoo your soul
on its skin.

if want to feel, touch.
reach out with your longest
arms, find something to hold
if you want that tactile release.

poetry is not the answer.
there is no catharsis in it
anymore.

forget it.

it took looking down
at the reds and browns
of the canyon below
for me to notice
that I was walking
on a narrow and
thinning rope.

I asked the sun
where have you been?
because I needed you,
this last year,
when things got
so dark that I thought
that you were never
coming back.

then the sun
with a brilliant smile
and peaceful tone
asked of me
the very
same
question.

as spring comes on the horizon
I find myself like the ground:
frozen and hard.

now that winter has been,
for so long, my world,
I am adjusted for it.

I am laid low by self-correction,
there is great pain in recreation,
as I thaw out for summer.

each year my skins cracks anew
and I wonder why there was no pain
as my colors turned dark in the fall.

to the unwilling or willingly inable,
the course of the stream that we float on
like autumn leaves seems beyond control
because we have never felt what it is like
to control where we go, let alone know
that we can become unmovable objects.

1 (alseep)

now tell me: how are you?
******

why is that?
I’m ******

how do you know this?
I can see myself
I am but a tower of ****
that walks like a man

how do you know this?
I can see

what other proof have you?
my life

what of it?
it has **** all over it

that says nothing about you
how so?

the bed is not a blanket
because the former
is smothered
in the latter.

there is no
choice.

but there is.

to be good enough.

then chose
become something new
one that is good enough for you

let’s begin,
repeat after me:

2 (dreams)

good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
good enough
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3 (back to bed)**

now tell me,
how have you been
doing?

good enough

say it again
good enough

again
good enough

again
good enough

again!
good enough!

again!
good enough!

once more
good enough

and again
good enough!

again
good enough

I don’t believe you!
good enough!

you are a liar!
no!

you are here to cheat me!
no!

you are here to cheat yourself
no!

you said no lies! no tricks!
there are no lies! no tricks!

liar!
no!

so tell me again!
good enough!

again!
good enough!

AGAIN!
GOOD ENOUGH!

liar! you’re pathetic!
me? you’re pathetic!

how?
you lie!

how?
you told me this would help!

how does that make me a liar!
I still feel like ****!

ah! but do you?
what?

do you still hate yourself?
what?

do you feel worthless?
what?

do you feel like a waste?
what?

for you have just told me
three-hundred and seventy-eight times
that you are not
so how are you?

good enough?
good enough.

good, now again.