Self-contempt

I've been a beaten battered ship along the lonely coast. I've been a weak defense against the things I want most. I've been a hot and heated pot boiling within myself. I've been years of dust collecting on the shelf.  I've been words spread thin, dried out in the sun. I've been broken in and forced to run. I've been played like the family piano and trusted just the same. I've been known for nothing and labeled with that name. I've been sick of what I am and how long I've fought. I've been sitting here wondering how long I'll take to rot.

Arbitrary

I remember as a kid thinking about who I'd become when I grew up. I had standards for myself, like never to smoke or get drunk. I promised myself that when I become a dad, I'd never hit my kids or lose control and scream at them.

I used to have fantasies about living in a tree house and driving everywhere on a dirt bike. Other times I'd imagine everyone in the world just disappeared. I'd crews the streets in any car I wanted. I would go into a gas-station and take all the bubble gum and ice cream I wanted. I had taken into consideration that I might one day get lonely, so I stipulated in my dreams that people were only temporarily gone.

As I got older, my dreams matured and altered with me. I started dreaming of being alone on this earth, but with the entire female population. For some mysterious reason the entire male population vanished, leaving me the only man on earth. Now I'm fantasizing about getting a fulfilling job and traveling.

Yep, times change, or more accurately, time changes me. I don't hang out with the same friends, I don't have the same views as I did when I was a kid, and I don't have the same standards.

I don't know what all this means... probably nothing. But I recognize it and am self-aware.

Requite

The time lapses from cloudy and grey to sunny like May, and with many days comes the occasional rain. It floods the creeks and dams for weeks with washed up leaves and limbs. The bridge that burned seems trifling when nature takes its toll and fills back the hole. Like two magnates polar opposite, these two sides requite with earths deposit. A connection is made with sticks and rocks and stones and bones. These things are piled up from places unknown. It takes more work to keep from building up than to watch nature rebuild its own when left alone.

Omelette of Memories

You're closer than a friend
yet I held you at arms end.
I longed for our perfection
and hung myself on this perception.
Your face is stuck in my head
and all the words that you said.
About the moments we had,
both the happy and the sad.
I remember our growling tummies
and how the noises were funny.
We always worked up an appetite
from those long sleepless nights.
I wish I had recorded
the first time you farted.
Your face was so innocent
and I never did mention it.
You cared for me like nothing I've ever known,
as if I finally found my chimney home.
My heart for you to hold,
my loneliness bid and sold.
Exchanged for Sunday lit mornings
and the occasional snoring.

We were two eskimos spooning,
laying warmly in your bed.
Tomorrow always looming,
leaving lots of things unsaid.

I wish I would have told you
about the demons in my head.
Instead I let them brew
and watch confusion get fed.

Not sure if I should remember or forget,
I'm trying to learn without regret.
I put these memories on the shelf
and look at them when I doubt myself.
Days now are hard and hectic,
forgetting when times were scenic.
We used to talk for hours
and stay together even in showers.

You caught me broadside
that night at the party.
I sang and I cried
with my composure left faulty.

You hit me, hard right
the night of our fight.
You called me furious
but I was unconscious.

I woke up reviled,
tattered and maimed.
We reconciled
but it just wasn't the same.

I held on to that pain
to remember its name.
To hold it by the throat
and have it to quote.
So it never came around
and it caused me to drowned.
I held on with all things weighted
my failure I had already fated.
I say this now looking back,
it wasn't perfection that we lack.
I was afraid it would end just like my past.
Life would happen and it wouldn't last.

Man

Where did all the good men go? Standing as a pedestal for his sons and daughters to reach higher. Noble is so bold, so old, so forgotten. Selfish seeps in like a snake in the night. The venom runs deep now in the blood line of our children. Grey grandfather knew hard work and honest life. His hands tough and weathered, signs of genuine love.

My blood is bold. My forefathers, I thank. My hands will callus for love. My heart will bleed for the hearts of my sons.

Money

It brings out the worst in people, morally and emotionally. People are on the edge of death and we walk on by. Leverage. Separation. Equal opportunity works in a perfect world. This world is failing and I am fading.

Burn It Down

Kerosene, gasoline, the fire starts here. Light the match that burns hotter than the anger from the year. These are the days when stones are placed for walking and walls are made for blocking. Say the words that we take to the grave when it's too late for our souls to save. The bridge creaks and groans as it bellows its last goodbye. The winds from the heat whisper a sweet sigh. It's over and done and terrifying to see. I only wish in the end it was me. These flames, vicious, your acts, malicious. Not fire with fire just sick of this mire. No need to come back, the crossing is gone. With my head up high, I look toward the dawn.