a long drawn out death scene

the failure of fluorescents found me fondling my phone

mazzy star music and me alone

 

i look at her look in the photograph i took

and realize her look has no meaning for me

 

massive amounts of mountain dew

and i wonder why my abs

can’t break through the layer of skin

 

why am i here again?

wondering about abs and skin

 

i need something to write

but the dark streets of decay

took it all away

and i can’t repeat that performance

 

oh i’m up late again

but i’m sober

over and over

but it really hasn’t made a difference

 

but that’s not the issue

it’s when i sit alone in a room

with me

and i think of the line,

“i’d walk a thousand miles to slip this skin”

 

but that won’t happen

so what is the realistic step?

being accepted?

that also is not realistic

 

can’t i just skip this moment?

and a few million moments more?

 

there are days i don’t know how i function

then there are days i look everyone in the eyes

and think, “i don’t care”

 

the joyful jubilance of dancing on air

is for the young

whom life has spared

 

the editor emailed that the manuscript needed changes

the printer couldn’t format the book the way it was written

 

now i self-publish

 

now there is no one to keep my lines in line

and the reader thinks i dine on insanity

like Kerouac released from the Navy

 

mashed potatoes and gravy are good

and so much better than words

especially words written while whispering

William Carlos Williams,

“i am lonely, i am lonely

i am best when i am so”

 

and no one knows that i wrestle with the weight

of wrenches while i undo the rusted nuts

so i can disassemble my mind

and for no other purpose then to escape

the boredom of being broken

 

no, i will not be unspoken

and i am only looking for one person

who will read what i write

no, scratch that,

who will read and understand

 

for after all it is me on the page

setting the stage

for critics to write a bad review

 

but i can’t undo the fact that you

must live in a world where

one plus one must equal two

because in my world it doesn’t

 

i don’t even like to number the pages

throw the manuscript in the air

and read it in the order you pick it up

it won’t matter

 

but until you understand why it won’t matter

you will never understand

 

so i sit alone with me

slowly i start to ease

into the comfort of my skin

as i realize my unlimited dimensions

can’t fit in your three dimensional world

it would disrupt the very fabric of space and time

 

morning will shine about the time i climb into bed

i’ll wake having forgotten all that i said

and wonder if i should be embarrassed

i put it out there to be read

 

linger in the instead

write, “pop tarts are an art for which

only the consumer gets paid”

if you ever had a pop tart

you won’t disagree

and wouldn’t i be popular?

 

once i wished upon a star

only to learn it had died

a million years ago

and it’s light was the illusion

of lasting memories

and crickets that croon

that all your dreams come true

 

oh the lies they tell us when we’re young

like how four is the result of two plus two

 

and so many of us never unlearn those lies

we just get by on the framed knowledge

that hangs on the walls of our mind

and never see how it contradicts

what we eventually witness

 

i think it all began when my love left

me on the sands of a coral island

airplane ascending

with me pretending i had the power

of Linda Ronstadt

and would one day return to my blue bayou

 

i wrote my first poem about

the distance between she and i

and a poet was born

a few years later i would write,

“nothing makes me question the meaning

of life more than meeting a past love”

and this poet’s birth became

the promise of a post mortem abortion

and i unraveled the truth that there are no absolutes

and the seeds originally planted withered and died

in their budding infancy

 

oh how i cried for clemency

until i learned

it just is and then it isn’t

and that’s all it ever was

and yet it took me how many pages

in the dark streets of decay to convey

those two lines?

 

men cloister women to keep them close

i grew up in that type of household

and that’s all i learned about love

 

oh fragile wings

oh snow white dove

the window pane

impacts your brain

and the illusion of passage

is a red rose held by a black glove

 

and everyone pretends they’re happy

because no one knows what happiness is

 

but the hour is late

or is two a.m. early?

 

i don’t know

 

i guess it’s all a matter of opinion

but then that’s all anything really is

 

so i will leave it at that

and a reminder of the fact

that when you’re whacked

your heroes die of cataracts

 

***