Sky Blue
I don’t know why you
care about me and I
can’t really understand
and I’m afraid of
everything I don’t
understand
and I’m afraid of
everything.
I don’t know why you
care about me and I
can’t really understand
and I’m afraid of
everything I don’t
understand
and I’m afraid of
everything.
4:52am
I will lay here and hope against
hope I get to
dream of you.
There are words I imagine
I imagine
for when your life explodes without
much warning
there’s the sudden ice storm the rain which
freezes damn near instantaneously upon the asphalt and at
sixty miles per hour of course
there’s the old spin there’s the old hello the
passing semis
a hundred yards back
what can you do
hold steady touch neither the gas nor the brake
my father taught me well
and the embankment was conveniently leniently inclined
and the center of gravity in a small cheap commuter car is
thankfully low for the rapid lateral transition of traction
there are words
there must be words for when four seconds feel like forty
there must be words for when you nearly kill
yourself and two of your best friends
there are too many things are happening all at once
but I got me two options
and I intend to take the
harder one.
though caesar is a tyrant he is likely
well-intentioned and by virtue of charisma or whatever we
want him to survive the
knives and every time we read it or see it you just
hope maybe a little that this time he
makes it but of course
it went the one way
and despite the brilliance of the orators they
all died bleeding too
and everyone was just doing the right thing of course
I’m sure he thought he was very important
I’m sure they all did
all the tiny little pawns of history
drunken poets and emperors of rome
it’s very easy to feel very
very small
I am a car in a slot
a child’s toy
in very good company.
Here’s one I wrote a while back and didn’t put up because, well, just read it and you’ll see why. I guess it’s kind of sad.
If all we are is the sum of the choices we make
when the fuck did I ever choose this was it
last night this morning last year my next life past
life this very instant? I can’t remember am I always choosing this
I can’t remember anything my hands shake almost
too hard to even type this if only I could have a strong
drink or five right now it takes that many anymore to
stave it off I guess that might be one reason why I
feel like I’m dying all the time the choices we
make why do we make them and at this
fleeting waystop en route from oblivion to oblivion will I
spend myself hammered or shaking so hard I had to locktite the
screws in my head forgetting being as it happens
compulsively telling friends and strangers alike
I am insane
can you read it from my face you can can’t you can’t you
tell I’m paranoid about my own paranoia and the shame
I should feel ashamed of this right have I earned the
right to suffer from mental illness yet have I earned the
right to write about it I don’t know but my own better judgment
tells me to bury this shit hide it tell no one because most people
just can’t understand
and christ do I wish I didn’t
but I disregard my better judgment as always
I’ve got to write it, it’s a compulsion
thankfully it does make me feel better about it all
but isn’t it already readily transparent I feel like everyone can see it
feel like my pores excrete some sort of pheromone that signals to everyone in my
immediate vicinity: this guy’s unhappy
did I forget to take the shirt off this morning that reads hey everyone I’m batshit nuts
and I’ve never been so scared in my life except for every other waking moment of
a thing I can’t even name or see or even adequately describe the
aching void the dread the lack that zero absolute beyond reckoning
heat death of consciousness of the self final reversion to
entropy as precedes so must succeed the threshold
singularity black beyond black silent beyond silence the
fear the fear you can’t escape no one will ever escape you’re
making that choice you will always make that choice you
crazy son of a bitch what are you doing to yourself
deep breath fold down visor open mirror look at self
you are ok you are ok you are ok ok
repeat it out loud with conviction you
will survive this day or at least this minute or at least this
instant knock wood it’s all in my head that’s true but
wasn’t geometry all in Euclid’s head at
one point isn’t everything all in our heads well
that’s a little misguided and reductive don’t you
think but the dread sure as shit feels real
is there such a phobia as fear of self
I guess that’s called depression comorbid
generalized anxiety disorder
terms terms
anyway break’s over back to work keep it together.
the hard part is of course the beginning
you’ve got to catch the reader’s attention
as an inveterate fleeter of mind I am the difficult
target audience to which I presently address myself
and that’s not some bullshit metaphor no when I write I truly
am just talking to myself
a tendency towards one of several big words I seek to
know myself a little bit better because maybe then I’ll be a
little bit less scared or sad or confused or all the words which
according to my own upbringing and understanding should
not describe a man
and so here I find myself
oh honey baby tell me something I want you to
tell me what you think about when you shake
into tiny little pieces and you blow blood into tissues and
that’s what happened last night huh nothing like a
good expensive regret you can’t afford and oh baby please
tell me something I need you to tell me why you do it and
maybe maybe I can say maybe again and have some hope and
do you have any of that? I’ll spend everything I have if
you’ll sell it but how could I ask that but how couldn’t I see
this is what desperation smells like and I can smell it on you too
but of course you don’t exist and neither do I so hey we have
that in common huh rapport there the lines go and go and goddamn
I am so terribly alone and I am so
terribly afraid and I can’t write anymore because hell I
can hardly even think anymore and that’s the way I want it
one can effectively lobotomize oneself given ethanol enough and time enough and you
get to choke and vomit and bleed and vomit and you get to kill
everything you’ve ever known you get to take it all and when they
finally put you down in the oven or the dirt they’ll read words and
cry and you’ll kill them a little more and maybe maybe you’re being too
hard on yourself but the trouble is you
aren’t being hard enough
or you’d do something about it.
Suppose no one ever told me it would be easy.
when you die how much of me will die
when I die how much of you will die
how did it get to this
how did we get here
the poet uses repetition to stress a point
breathe
just look at the trees
everything is going to be ok
won’t even hear it no one ever does
not in any meaningful way
breathe
look at the trees
it will take no time at all and right now will be a
terribly long time ago
everything is going to be ok
breathe
look at the trees
look at the sky
everything is going to be ok.
I think I’ll probably live in that moment forever
if only I could live there forever
if only it could have been one of the
good ones or at least the not awful ones if
only I could live forever there where the stunned
disbelieving still held power there’s
a knock on the door nine
forty seven pm there’s been
the worst thing anyone’s ever said
there’s been wash your hands with
warm water don’t use heroin vaccinate drive the
speed limit don’t hold the kickback
brake to the forward handle on the saw there’s
change your oil don’t run yellows don’t
drive drunk we’ll come get you
make your bed
take your vitamins
make friends
play sports
study
try
try and you’ll make it
but there’s worst thing anyone’s ever heard the
worst thing anyone’s ever said
there’s been an accident
and if I could live forever
if I could live forever
sometimes you follow the rules and sometimes there’s just
nothing to be done
killed instantly they said but don’t you
think they always say that
and but what did you do except unwittingly
intercept the deviant trajectory of an unconscious man who
should have been piloting his seven thousand pound
vehicle and sometimes you just don’t get to know why
you just don’t get to know why
do we even really exist
and if we don’t then can we really no longer exist
somewhere else in time or space does that
awful closed casket find love find peace make peace
you just can’t know.