Storm

This isn't my life
Dreams showed me a truth better
Than this confusion

I'm falling backward
Without an end or safety
Through sweet delusion

The storm is passing
Fleeting sun shining on me
Welcome illusion

Memorial Day Squirrels

Three squirrels
Chase each other across
The fence top
Wiggling ridiculous tails

I thought animals were made
Of much more instinct
And survival

But I know I just saw
The middle squirrel
Hop over the first
Goddammit
They are playing

I'm daydrinking on the back deck
Alone

It's Memorial Day

A day to quietly reflect
On squirrel behavior.

Nothing

I'm not even a blip.
A thought.
Even though my brain
Is so loud.
Colorful.
Overflowing.
I mean,
How could it not be noticed?
There's times
I convince myself
I am the center.
But really
I'm a background character.
Just an extra.
Insignificant.
Unremarkable.
Flat.

Full moon

People speak to
Invisible gods
So
I don't feel all that mad
Out here
Begging favors from the moon
Please
Hear

The weekend begins

It's a sticky warm Friday afternoon
My hair is biggish and frizzy
Sweat at the scalp
I smell like sleep and summer
Morning coffee has been swapped for liquor
Pretty quickly
Lawnmowers happen through the window
Erica Jong Half Lives open
On the kitchen table
And I realize all the poetry
In the world never hits me so hard
As a Springsteen song

I do what I want.

This life
Time
Is all a charade
Illusion
No matter what we do.
Who gives a shit
What I do or why
In the long run
In the big picture.
From the dawn of time to now
We're just a blip
An insignificant blip.
We can do what we want
And fuck off to every
Judgy shit
That thinks otherwise.

Stoppit

It's hard to be silent and mindful
Withdraw from unhealthy behaviors
Focus on what should be
Instead of reaching for coulds
Don't drink, don't get weird
Stop hyper focusing
Nobody likes that
Quit creeping, quit brooding
Just exist within these boundries
Where no one is uncomfortable
And no one gets hurt
And everyone wins but me.

Awake

I'm sober tonight
and plan to be
better
Plan to shed this shadow
Find myself again
Stop trying to find
meaning and holy moments
in those who can't see me
Life is uncertainty
Answers don't exist
Only the odd insights
Unexpected soul confrontations
Irretrievable spots of beauty
that linger only in memory
And there's no way to force these things
It feels as if we're in this
awkward conflicting state
both passive and responsible
But we do have the controls
Repeat after me
I am not confined to this role
I am never stuck
I am not a character in this story
I'm the writer.

Exploding

How can some seem so
Emotionless when
I am so fucking
OVERRUN WITH THEM
Is it a male thing
To not show any sign
Of being human
Or am I just so
Unstable
That I distrust those
That appear to have this shit
Figured out
I can't live tonight
Without music shaking me
Liquor turning me inside out
Poems to shoot and kill
My demons with
My mind is an exploding universe
And I can't deal with
The goddammed laundry or dishes.

Slow burn

Tread lightly
Regardless of what dreams
Drunken intuition
Or pangs of lonely
Tell you

It's fragile
And as messy as I am
As hard the need is
There's so many sides
So many
Sides

I'm afraid
Of acting and not
Change
No change
It can't all coexist
One cancels out

I don't want to know
How this ends.
I need to know
How it begins.