At Very Least

When I'm no longer fascinated by my tattoos,
When my dogs are making my life filthier,
and covered in hair,
When the best books have no savour,
When every song is bankrupt,

There's no fulfillment
Only stress, and striving
to death and a question mark.
They'd probably eat me
if I died here and now.

When work isn't an anxiety attack
or a black hole
or a way to feed myself;
Just something to do.

A little time with others
is the punchline to the joke
of the other ninety-five percent of life.
Like sorrow is the spearhead
but hope
is the six feet of oak that drive it home.

And love...well, nevermind.

Cooking is irritating
Eating just waste of time
Cleaning is pointless
Staying warm not worth it

Self improvement stinks of fallacy
and all the good advice
I ever took or gave
finds the stumbling block
of insurmountable self.

The words of my cynical
and callous favourites
mount in my soul
into something I wrote
better than they did.

"We are the lucky ones, my dear."

To get to live,
and love,
and hate,
and hurt.
To get to be here at all.
To see and hear and all.

And I thank every book I ever read
For my rational brain.

Because I know things
that I don't feel.

Assuming You're Right

*This is an old one I dug up, edited and was pleasantly surprised to still enjoy.


I like to hope that the sky will one day split apart
And spew back verbal vulgarity and chemical death
(I'm all about settling scores)
The sickening saturations it never asked for,
And we'll all be party to a most unnatural disaster.
Then, much refreshed, that simple wonder
you made a god
will swallow the bloviating, pandering bullshit
you built a life around
and take back what it's owed -
Your lives - "souls" if you prefer.

I bet that sounds crazy.

But until that time,
keep acting, confusing, offering, appeasing
but never searching, never asking.

Even if we do seven years tribulation
Then one thousand with this king of nations,
And you've moved on past the grave,
Some of you raptured away,
You'll find when that drama is said and done,
This will all keep spinning,
And probably be better off.

That's one there's plenty of proof for.

Sorrow, Smiles, Sarcasm and Stout

Seeking shelter in the sweetly sad
songs of my ancestors,
Where things are tuned
and toned down
as I've ever been.

After the hundredth time I rejected a set up,
a friend asked me:
"What even makes you happy?"
And I had no answer
But a blank stupid stare.
"You need some joy in your life!"
And I couldn't argue there.
"You need someone to help you
act your age. Be young for once."
But I've been old
Since I've been at all,
So I shrugged.

I've never wanted this.
I'm so tired of being tired.
I don't want to remember,
Or recall,
with every thing I do.

Like

After some off-colour silliness,
another friend said:
"You're so wonderful,
you'll find someone to love you
and make you as happy as you make us."
And with no shame I replied. "I did."
I saw, in her eyes,
her heart break for me,
despite the petty insignificance of my life
compared to her trials.
And her hug was the best one I've had in a long while.

I see that face still
Burned in the back of my eyelids
The light after the dark
Floating in the aether
of a sanity severed

Questioning myself
Calling my own bluffs and obsession
Reaching, in a dream, like a joke, for a dead past
I wake and fake a solace in false confession.

I hand out advice I can't take
And break and wither
I have become rot

Comparing falsehood
to a drifting now
You are the last
If ever there was a first
Or has it always been a lie?
Have these feelings always been a bad joke?
A pun of psychology and biology,
while the robot rusts.

A few years and change of sunlight and silver lining
and then the dark skies returned.
Well, it does feel like home.
Was I just two faced,
living two lives?
Goddamn me for a hypocrite.

Aw fuck it,
You gotta take what you can get.

If Jesus is always the answer, how lame is the question?

Have you ever lived with guilt
like a lung?

I tucked and rolled out of
a runaway train
of jealousy
and mistrust.
Overnight, becoming
everything I ever
earned myself.

Found my stride again
(finally)
in an uphill sprint;
Snapping every tendon,
Baby this is how I do things
Never too old to change, but
why would I subject you
to me?

Learned to swim
choking
and drowning
in a dead salt sea
of cliche tears
and archetypal heartache.
Opened my mouth to myself.

Sometimes it's better to lose who you used to be;
The first person to forgive is yourself.

Hurricane J

Because I don't know what else to do with these memories that I can't shake,
thoughts that won't leave my head,
I write them.

A bare, purple painted cafe tucked into a back hallway
in a huge hotel
really wanted to be a Starbucks.
Where I went to get us a subpar breakfast of barely toasted, doughy bagel,
for something like four times the cost of the same thing at Tim's,
and a coffee for myself that was slightly better priced.
You brought your own tea.
You were always a way better shopper.
We'd both spend little, but
you'd find smart, cost effective ways to do things
whereas I would just not eat.
But I brought that over-priced, under-satisfying "meal"
to our room and set it down on the coffee table
beside the grapes we'd bought at the grocery store,
like a proud hunter dropping a carcass in front of his tribe,
and the smile on your face made me feel like Boyfriend of the Year.

Tropical storm and general penny pinching
stole possibilities.
Set me on edge, and you on guard.

I ruined our tropical vacation with a cold shoulder.
If I had opened my mouth,
the one that likes to talk so much about maturity and problem solving
on a broad social scale,
we'd have been sad, then happy, then healed,
and so much stronger for it.
I took your patience for granted.

Then, hungry and tired, worn down,
I just wanted to go back to the hotel and rest.
I don't think you quite understood my weariness,
but why I didn't man up, and made you leave the place
you were so excited to be
that we spent outrageous amounts just to get there,
I have no idea.
I guess because I am smaller than I thought.

Because a heart functions like a cemetery gate
saying "don't tread here" where the memories
are grave markers,
there is so much in this world I don't want to see;
it only reminds me of you.

I don't care if I'm supposed to be over it by now.
I know it makes living very hard.
I'm trying, and that's all I can do.
I challenge someone else to get over someone like you,
or something like us,
so soon.

We did talk,
and it did get better,
and we did make the best of that trip,
there was a lot of snuggling,
a lot of laughing,
and a lot of joy;
but I never shook the feeling
that I took something beautiful and made it suck.

Now, when I look at those pictures
treasuring each one like a breath,
I see only the laughter.
I guess that's how I'm supposed to remember it.

Saturday Night's Alright

Nobody's there.
Nobody's listening.
Can't call, can't e-mail.
Gotta be mature.
Gotta sit here alone.
Dog's looking at me funny.
"Stop making that noise."

My love and my best friend were one in the same.
And having lost them...I'm not sure who I am.
I fearlessly invested the parts of me that she loved most
into her and us, to make us smarter, stronger, better,
and now there's nothing I like about me that doesn't have her face on it.

At 11:11, an old crush used to text me every day to "make a wish!"
But I kept that in mind long after, once we were together,
and when I looked at the time, I'd just hope that we could always be this happy.
At that time today I just wish I could hear your voice again.
It seems like a cruel punishment the universe has given me,
for not knowing the solution to a problem,
a solution that I was only taught by losing you and being punished.

No friends to call.
Nobody to visit.
The phantom feeling of your arms around my neck.
And this wail that I can't stop for the life of me,
Clutching a photo album like a cross.
As alone as I've ever been,
As alone as I always will be.

237

Never been so productive at work,
so prolific with a pen,

as the moment I realized you can really hide
from emotion in other activities.

Started with just trying to keep it together at work by putting my head down and lifting another box.

Turned into me never letting
 myself have the thoughtful alone time
 that makes me who I am,
 out of a terror of my mind meeting you
 on some as-yet-undiscarded memento.

Grew up dealing with everything the hard way,
 for a quarter century,
until finally I found a pain I could not get through:
 my life minus you.

Found myself in strange locations
 I wouldn’t normally be in
wearing someone else’s face,
hoping beyond hope to find a different kind of life;
that pieces of me which possessed the most pride
 could shift as I’ve never wanted them to before
 for the single simple fact that I don’t know
 how to miss you in a healthy way. 

I’ve been shaking for a week now.
Can’t tell if its hunger or stress but
I can’t get warm and
these tremors start in my core,
moving through back and shoulders
until I’m shaking like a palsy patient.
Friend thinks it’s repressed emotion,
that I’m “too okay.”
I say it’s simply out of sight, out of mind
and I probably just have a fever.

Did it kill my ambition to finally be happy?
Here I am. Same place
as two and a half years ago.
But I feel progressed. I don’t know
if that’s a good thing.

 I feel like I know nothing about
 myself for the fibres of our feelings
 were sewn together, so together
that I forget how to function, minus you.
And they were twisted so tightly
 and seemed so strong,
pulling in every direction but
 never separating
until the blade of miscommunication
sliced through our idea of forever.

And even as I write these words
I’m refusing to let myself feel them.
 Not writing through the pain, not this time.
 I’m writing away from it, breaking every rule
 my mom taught me about tackling my tribulations.
 This isn’t me. 

But I just want to leave me behind
because I bring you with me
 everywhere, which I can’t bear.

And a strange symptom of this sad sickness
is that suddenly songs sound better.
As if there is a minimum of love and
a maximum of misery we're allowed,
the day after you leave me the scales tip.
Things I was bored with are enthralling,
good music is once again, as I've always said,
like coming home.

And this too is an escape,
but if the price of a little comfort
is knowing I’m not half as strong
 as I thought I was,
I'll purchase proudly
with the strongest, sincerest smile I can conjure up.

Now stumbling blindly
back to the world;
not blind because of the bright lights of potential
 but because I saw so clearly,
and now I'm as a newborn pup,
eyes barely open,
seeing only unfamiliar shapes and colours.

 
Back to a world of narrow minds and quick judgment,
slander and resentment
and girls who see themselves through male eyes;
males whose eyes don’t even recognize themselves
so distortion begets distortion
and eventually the best way we have
for measuring a person’s worth
is a rating system from one to ten. 

You were never like that.
You fought back
against your programming and said
no.

But the ghosts of your past
would surface occasionally
to the point where one of the strongest, smartest females
I’ve ever known was reduced to the state of the majority:
lacking confidence, not hearing the truth or good words,
dolling up for everyone and dumbing down for no one in particular.
Happens to the best of us
and you’re certainly that
but oh how I hated
to see you sad.

I can't stand these people.
And not because they're not you,
because I never could.
This shallow life where
it's never okay to be who you are,
at least unless you put it in a joke or a song,
I'm not built for it.
That's why you found me alone,
quite content to be so;
but I took the chance of finding a kindred spirit
and if you aren't, no one is, or ever will be.
(I’ve been used to that idea for a long time.)
And we penetrated thought-deep
to a place in each other’s minds
that connected us in a way
spiritual gurus can only pretend to.

Quickly found love again.
Realized what a fleeting farce this whole endeavour is.
It doesn’t matter how hard you fall,
or how well you land,
you will have to crawl back up and out
of love.
I've always believed in love
and I think I still do,
but what's it worth in the face of life?
When held up to passion
and personality clashes
and goddammit I damaged
the person that meant most to me
because we couldn't grow,
because I couldn't be a better person. 
“True” love, a tricky turn of phrase,
no I think I’ll call it “possible” love;
only what we can put up with
and make the best of.

Truth implies an answer to a question
that no one is yet sure of.

Shining by comparison
but why can't I make it work
standing alone?
Why does everyone want to be with me until they are?
I've burned through most friends and every old crush,
hoping that whatever they thought they knew about me was right.
Found only that I was right
as usual
and you were the only person yet to prove me wrong;
this is not something I’m proud of because it’s all based on
expecting the worst in people.

I’m so sick of being right.
I really mean that.
I’m not bragging – it’s not a good thing.
Please for goodness’ sake
someone
come and surprise me.   

Laying awake in this bed
where I held you so close,
where our family kept tight for warmth
and you put your forehead to mine,
demanding goodnight kisses.

I will never not miss you.
I will never forget our love.
I'd sacrifice more than I can name
to have you back
But life is more than just a transaction;
Your feelings changed.

I wish I'd stayed that night;
Maybe I could have held you and healed us
instead of not being able to deal with it when
you said "I don't see how this could get better."
I could have faked security and played strong,
It could have worked,
could have got us through.
You say it wouldn't have changed a thing,
But at least one thing would change for sure:
I'd have had one more night of holding you.
If I could have used the same advice
I wanted to say to you
(but didn't,
because I never wanted to step over a boundary)
I would deal with things just being alright,
and not amazing,
for a little while.

Such a short time ago I had the world held to my chest.
Took for granted that I always would,
and so forgot to tell you how much I love you
with every single chance.

Every time I bottled up,
never wanting to lash out
for fear of hurting you
or open up and confess
for fear of hurting me
I should only have put petty things aside
And pulled you close.
We agreed often that to live without regret
is to never learn, and foolish,
but I had no idea you would one day
show me how right we were.
Thought there was no line I could push you to,
and why would I push you away anyway,
when I was usually only upset because I felt you slipping away
and there you'd be with your arms out;
you are the best of all of us.
I could kiss every one of your flaws for being better still than
all the good things I'd experienced before you.
I didn't want to put pressure on you, always told you
it wasn't your job to make me happy,
but I left out that you did, with every hug, every smile, every day.



You are rare.
We had it all
and now I've learned real regret
because every unsaid word rises up
to my eyes and throat
and I shove them back down as they build
and build
with no outlet.
We don't talk.
This is what you wanted.
I can't say I blame you for the silence
Because if I couldn't be strong then,
with your hand still in mine,
what kind of an embarassing mess would I be
with nothing to lose?
And all I ever wanted was to be strong for you;
To let you shine positivity and light and love
however you felt best,
and be there with my arms open when you wanted me.
God, you can make a person feel amazing just by looking at them.

I worried early on that you'd turn into just another one of those girls
and you said "never."
And you were right.
But I didn't see the conflict coming
When you started to make distance, and I don't know if I pushed you there
or if life did; if we started to grow apart.
But how?
When so much of it was what we did together,
you'd just started to do it
without me.

How can this be right?
I can't believe this is what you wanted;
unless I never knew you at all.
It's never too late. I'll always be here.

“Wake up, wake up my god,
this is not a test. It’s not too late
to come clean,
get it off your chest.”
These words, the introduction
to the best motivation,
the only help seminar
I’ve ever invested in.
Sometimes it’s nice to believe
the believers,
because their safe certainty,
no matter how deluded,
can be a rock to hold fast to
when all else is crumbling.
But I guess that’s really just
what friends are for.
But those words...
those words are me, now,
as they once were.
It's not too late to come clean,
even if it is only to myself.

Pull yourself together, man!

Back to me,
back to all I ever had,
back to the distance from everyone
that allows me to like anyone.

I know this game well;
We are the ones built to win it,
my love.

Talk about (ba-boom),
 talk about it (ba-boom-boom-BAP),
at least it makes you feel something...
inside.

Goddammit.
I love this song.
Words clear my head
and music lifts my spirits.
I have no illusions;
I’ll crash again soon.
This elation holds out
only so long;
happy isn’t my thing anyway.
I’ve done this dance
too many times
to think it would go any differently.

But I was surprised once;
once there was a light
on the other side.

The shine of your smile
in the bright afternoon sunlight.
Yellow dress one day,
Blue dress the next.
"Just going for a walk, want to come?"

I had certainty.
I touched beauty.
I got to hold you almost every night
for two and a half years
and I didn't take one second of it
for granted.
Please don’t ever stop smiling,

The world is so much brighter,
because of you.