Dark Poetry Prose Poetry March 14, 2005 Dark Poetic Prose

9:16pm monday 3-14-05

something between my breastbone and my lungs. echoes. moans. hums like an amplifier turned up loud that no music's coming from.

ears bend. fold down. i don't want to hear anymore. shut the world out. enemies. strangers. friends. they all start to look the same. they all talk in the same cryptic language.

eyes inhale. breathe the world in. a frenzy of people. oceans of distance.

i'm just a rowboat with broken oars. caught in the middle of the ocean during a storm. i can't go forward. can't go back. i try to stay afloat as the current pulls at.

i'm just looking at the horizon wondering where it ends. when, if ever, it changes from water back to land again.

03-14-05 9:22pm monday

people learn different methods. some speak. some touch. some just question.

people see in different perspectives. some look. some watch. some just hope not to be noticed.

i never wanted to be different. not when i was young. not now that i'm older.

people ask in different ways. some demand. some beg. some just wait.

i never wanted to be silent. i just never knew what, how to say.

the paper allows. especially when the tongue is frozen. the fingers compensate. especially when the heart is broken.

03-14-05 monday 10pm

closer. closer to. how your breath moves in and out of. how far you are from everyone close to you.

don't take me at face value. my face has always hidden me. don't mistake my words for me. they're only one heartbeat amongst thousands.

life deals us out. hand after hand betting on. i'm bluffing again. don't call my cards.

closer. closer to. how time lingers on the edge of your thoughts as you're inventorying them. how well barters the heart when it's going out of business. everything must go.

i don't know who i'm in. who i'm out. i shuffle the cards. turn them over. but i can't bear to count.

don't let me win. don't make me lose. all i ever wanted was you.

don't ask me if. don't tell me how. just explain to me, where are you now?

don't read the words. don't try to interpret me. they're just rain that falls from my life of clouds. they're just the waves that knock those castle downs.

don't say you are. don't say you will. thieves in beggars clothing.

no closer. no closer to. how time pushes us to learn ourselves when. how different the answers are when you stop questioning yourself and begin to question them.

nothing caught under your skin. sharp splinter poking through. every moment begs the qiestion. but so few listen when you try to answer them.

10:31pm monday 3-14-05

turning inward. like a flower closing. the sun struts away and i begin to worship the darkness. how well it hides. how quietly it becomes. the last in a long line of. gentle fingers open the zipper and empty your life's contents.

i shouldn't have been born. shouldn't have made the womb my home. because every home we seem to make spits us out and forces us to find a new one. because everywhere we want to be always turns on us and tells us that it's time to leave.

there's nothing like remembering. knee to chest feebly rocking. there's nothing so warm as that last memory of happiness as the embers are faltering. and all that oranges is turning black.

i don't remember how it feels to know. i'm not sure i ever have. i just see the pictures hanging there. crude silhouettes of happiness. hanigng there. on the walls. gathering dust. strainiing the nails that hold them up.

i'm only trying to know them. failing miserably. i'm only trying to love them. trying to teach them how to love me.