if only still waters run deep why do i weep?

when people think that suicide

is not a proper compromise

they fill my brain with such disdain

i’d rather listen to the rain

 

pavlov broke everything down

to stimulus and response

it doesn’t become more meaningful

if and when you change the fonts

 

bukowski drank and joined the ranks

of waiting for the end

the only thing remotely real

is the moment we are in

 

give me graveyards and gothic girls

and whiskey on my lips

saying nothing ever matters

let’s take an acid trip

 

got fired for doing drugs at work

went home and just got high

i try, i mean i really try

but i can’t compromise

 

give me streets in cold or heat

i’ll walk them till i die

 

o.k. enough of this rhyming shit

i’m wasted

at one with the curb

 

came from a poetry reading

just listened, didn’t recite

people, not poets, trying to

be as relevant as bukowski

by borrowing from his borders

 

i pull up youtube on my phone

plug in my ear

tap my favorites

songs unrequited love

 

every lover since you

i’ve tried to make into

someone i could love

but you i just loved

for you

 

couldn’t help myself

from the moment i saw you i was lost

 

was it a moment in time

or the perfect rhyme

what’s with all this disquiet

writhing

the grim reaper scything

 

was it love?

was i really happy?

why are there days

i can do nothing but drink

and hate you

 

and yet everything after

has been a disaster

 

i try to be what they need

and tell them what i need

but nothing is you

 

i make contact

you react

and i glimpse gates

but can’t discern

if they will open

or  remain closed

 

and this is really the layers

peeled off the acrid onion

exposing the contents

that make me cry

 

i’m just a fool

who learned at your school

the meaning of love

but dropped out

before i could

earn a diploma

 

so i take the stage

an untrained actor

managing to factor

in the memory of

well rehearsed lines

 

but the critics accuse

my lack of sincerity

 

i read their reviews

and know only you

was what was real

 

the void of you i try to fill

with things that just enter

and pass as piss

into a putrid toilet

 

how do i get over this

jesus christ won’t answer me

so i ask my therapist

but how can she answer

when i’ve never been honest

and said i just want the sand

that has slipped through my fingers

not the sand i’m building castles with

so lost within the miss

that i just want to get

on my knees and scream

to whoever can repair the torn seams,

“tell me what to do!”

 

so sick of unhappiness

this emptiness

created by loss

i try to settle

but the kettle is screaming

that i’m just dreaming

but every reality i wake up to

is absent of you

and what i tried to brew

with scalding water

will not satisfy my taste buds

like the exquisite taste

i once knew

when it was me and you

 

***