Dark Poetry Prose Poetry December 12, 2003 Dark Poetic Prose

12-12-03 friday 8:40pm brick NJ

living is just the slowest way to die. you've always known it but, small moments expand once in a while. small moments expand and fill your life.

but then the second hand ticks and pierces the skin. and it all deflates again.

i'll love you when it can mean something for both us. until then i'll love nothing. i'll believe you love me when your eyes affirm. until then i'll remain unloved. huddling quietly with my could haves as we debate the reasons that.

life is just the cowards way to die. isn't it obvious. nothing to keep me here, but i don't leave. i'm a coward. maybe even less. life is just a symptom of cowardice. and love is just a drug that it abuses while it waits for the end of this.

as i sit here drinking much faster than i ought to. coddling this solitude. rocking it in my arms, still it cries. if i had a cure. if i had an answer i'd surely use it. i just don't. there isn't any to be found. who you are is who you'll always be. like it or don't. there's no bargaining. no exchanges on defective lives.

while i smoke my cigarettes and consume my tainted beverages i'm only wishing that i could find a reason not to. as i listen to the music and navigate my metaphors they all begin to look like cages. and i just wish that i had a reason to escape them.

it's not about the answers. not about the questions. it's everything that exists between them. all the places that hearts defend with their lives. all the seconds that tick counting why. why you covet them. that is, if you ever did.

it's not about the abesne or the presense of. it's something inside that either is there or isn't. a methodology that can't be defined. a path that leaves no footprints.

life truly is the just the slowest way to die. the coward's penance. i have no reason to live and so many to die, but here i sit. transcribing the minutes. a cross without a christ. a sin without forgiveness. a life that knows not why.