Own it.

Hallelujah.

Saw you standing there, with your beer and your smirk.

"I am Jack's smirking revenge."

I am Jack's reflux pride.

I am always listening.

Walk away, too little too late

Always one answer or another

You ever wish you hadn't?

That's an interesting strategy.

Yes, believe it or not I have a strategy sometime

I have something resembling forethought.

I am Jack's heaving chest.

I saw it there in your eyes,

Felt it in your tight embrace.

heard it in your plaintive call.

Saw it in your intensity, your focus and release.

We all want exactly the same things,

It doesn't ever change much,

We never change much, you know.

Babies and serious illnesses change people, but otherwise we just don't change much.

Its only the very basic things that might or might not keep us together.

Together.

I hurt.

Apart.

Alone.

Hold still.

Comfort.

Hold still.

Hold me still.

Show me care, I hold my head up through the fog.

"I just want you to be ok."

Thank you for seeing through to what's real,

I didn't imagine you at all.

I need to go.

Gotta run, gotta hide

Breathing harsh more than ever

Straight and narrow, clouded with regret and loneliness

None of this makes any sense anymore.

I am Jack's bottled heat.

I am my blurry eyes, my reddened skin, my shining scar.

I am my accident, your pity, my selfish judgement.

Denial?

Not sure, quite, whether this bleeding glass feeds my soul

Or numbs it.

Destroyed instantly, after taking up such arms.

Flattened, with a word.

A simple word, a meaningful expression

It doesn't take much.

A stiff winter breeze with the ocean hot on its heels

takes me away with her.

Take me away, out from here from my clamoring thoughts

From my laboured breathing and dripping sweat.

Give me something sweet, something tender

To tender tomorrow's coming defeat?

I build it up, stack it high, just to see all the cards fall

Over and over again.

A slight touch of comfort

Heady rush of thick bitter oak

I'll take what I can get.

Anything but this.

Melting wings

I can see.
I can see everything I have, right in front of me.
Everything I have is right here, right here.
If I just keep looking ahead, I can see it all
If stay right here
If I don't move, I won't see the spots that are missing
Everything I need,
Everything I want.
It's all right here. Don't need to ever look anywhere else.
Don't need anyone else, it's all here.
Everything in its place, where I like it.
Nothing's missing.
No flash no stripes no caution tape
If I just stay here.
If I just don't move.
No crashing bells to fright me
No bright blinding light
Shining through my skull.
I can see it all just now, just here
Just me and this and all I hold dear.
Everything I need.
Everything.

If I never.
What, so what if I never?
Get past your whining, it's not so bad
Getting knocked down a peg or two.
Not so bad seeing how
The other half lives
My star shines a little dimmer
Still brighter than the sun anyway.

Healing, in every moment.

Small ritual, devoted only to my surface
Reaches deeply through every crack.
Finds a hole to fill and helps.
Taking pleasure in simply being,
Narrowed focus and unfolding meaning.

Status.

Chewing.

Chewing through my own fat.

Through my lips and teeth and cheeks.

Sore and swollen, but I keep biting.

Itch I just can't scratch.

I'm cradling a deadly thing, touching it.

Watching it.

I've got a pocket full of nothingness

For once.

Nowhere to go

But up.

My restless tongue pushes through my mouth

As if getting out would help.

Courage?

"...they gather their courage, and they give it a try..."
I sit on the floor of a motel shower, pushing a sliver of soap across the shelf on the bottom of the shower door.
I shuttle it back and forth a few times, and then rinse the soap slime from my fingers.
I take stock of my skin- sallow pale, instead of my usual milky pale under the harsh motel bathroom light. I'm the wrong color. I wonder if anyone else has noticed.
For something to do, I count.
43.
I count again.
42.
The shower spray is narrow, though, only comforting one side of my back at a time. I sway slowly back and forth to warm my arms.
I rinse my hair again.
The water covers my ears, and for a minute, the drops hitting my wet head are louder than my thoughts. They're louder than my confusion. My ears are filled in this instant with something other than a jumbled loneliness, excitement, regret, and insecurity.
I am thankful for endless motel bathroom hot water.

Here, There, Again

Ask me.
Ask me again.
Tell me more.
Drifting away again, washing up on some distant shore
Unfamiliar territory, but isn't this a familiar position, darling?
Always a little far away, a little off, a lifted corner
And veiled meaning.
A lilting song brights my spirits a moment here or there

My turn to disengage.
Watch me disappear.
Eyes shining, hold me still
Hold me here
Close and tight.
One last footprint left in the snow
Right where I thought it might be.

Ask me.
Tell it again, the story of that time by the lake
Mysteries we made out of mud and mist
Tales we twisted out of reeds and grass
Glass water, our only audience.

Somehow we grow closer, through this.
Somehow we get from here to there
One path or another, it doesn't really matter.
Sparks fly wide, in time or space but not both.

Minor keys rattle between my ears,
Through my grandmother's laugh, through a screen door
Shattering windows that never quite crash all the way down
Whispers tangle all together, their cool watercolor storms
Bring me to my knees again.

Trading in my hard-won tokens for winding strands of real gold
Few and wondrous
But I wonder whether I was better off with brass coins.
Whether my imaginary prize was more precious
Than the jeweled thing I hold


Third string.
Muted laughter.
Strangled meaning.
Nothing fits.
It's all too much.
The death of the sun.
Last march.
Orange defeat.
Splendorous.
12-bar Blues.