Dark Poetry Prose Poetry February 3, 2004 Dark Poetic Prose

02-03-04 8:39pm brick NJ tuesday

been writing so long i can't remember why i started. like floating on water. half asleep. i needn't move at all. the current's breath will keep me moving.

no one believes me when i tell them how many times that i have died. and these words stumble as they try to engage those heights.

we can write. every day like it's the last time. push the forces of emotion backward through the valves that contain them. i can dance with these phrases until my fingers go limp, but they never tire.

there aren't many lives i can count as having been a part of. but those that i can are sacred. like graves i decorate them. with bouquets of tears when no one can hear. and eulogies much like this one.

love is a hot flame. it burns so bright that it only can last a few moments. and lovers they are the candle that is melted. and friendship that is the wax that's left behind to harden. if we let it. if we don't keep trying to light the fire again.

i just wonder why love can't be more temperate. why not lovers a little more patient. and why these friends stick to me, but i just slide right off of them.

fault lines in my life are quaking again. angry disconnected plates rupture the surface above them. creating new continents. new islands. shifting margins. spewing lava melting forest down to sand.

you're an answer to a question i can't ask. a faith born on a deathbed. i'm nothing. you can't see that. but you're beginning.

the words that once came so easy falter now. and i think it's because i don't care that much about what i'm feeling. spent so many years in their fever that i've built up an immunity. the words that once embodied all of me are shallower than they've ever been. not because i am. but only just because depth is relative. and i've spent so much time holding my breath at the deep end that i seldom need to come up for oxygen. i've lived most of my life diving down farther and farther. now i've hit bottom.