don’t make your problems my problems

lingering in a layer of lies

i look with limited eyes

 

i don’t belong

what is right

what is wrong

doesn’t change history

massacres, mutilations

murders, molestations

 

i have found the coast

i raise a toast

to waves that wash ashore

whether or not i exist

 

what we need

gives our lives

individual meaning

purpose

 

i sit on this sand

take hold of jenny’s hand

 

i would pray

but i know no matter what i say

no one is listening

 

the drinking will probably kill me

maybe even soon

but this afternoon

i’m just enjoying the moment

 

even amid the sound

of the explosion of waves

i can hear jenny’s mp3

plugs in her ears

playing a song by morrissey

 

she passes me back my flask

if there were someone to ask

i would stay right here

till i am nothing but scattered atoms

 

jenny has kicked off her sensible shoes

walked the wet sand

to where the surf slides over her ankles

and begins to dance

to the inspiration on her mp3

 

and i watch

sun on my face

lost in the warm embrace

of whiskey whirling round my mind

 

i don’t know what you are trying to find

or what gives your life meaning

but i join jenny among the tide

and dance to the music of the moment

that we try to hide

with the weight of worries

over things we cannot control

 

***