Dark Poetry Prose Poetry March 29, 2004 Dark Poetic Prose

8:54am 3-29-04 monday

i wake up because my body forces me to. i live because my blood is stubborn. it acts without conscience. and the mind truly is the weakest link. the only part of this body that ever questions the mission to keep it alive. and a mission it seems. a crusade even. all those parts and organs inside have only one purpose. to keep going. to sustain life. but how can this be if they are so connected to the brain. this brain which constantly wishes otherwise.

being born itself seems a fait accompli. that same first breath that begins a life also starts its countdown to dying.

blood may swim without reason. lungs might breathe never needing an explanation. but the mind. the mind truly is the weakest link. not strong enough to offer itself a reason to live nor capable of stopping it.

8:21pm 3-29-04 monday

fragile words upon the screen. framed in email boxes. conversation without the burden of listening. or talking. the slenderest threads of contact. and yet they tug so hard sometimes.

frail lives cloaked by. choking darkness. suns that never really rise.

sketchy images transported from secret places in the mind. shaky, stark reflections of a self you don't know. your art like a telescope scans your soul for galaxies uncharted. for distant stars whose light has never shone.

but i don't understand because it never used to be this way. i don't understand why realistic portraits and cartoons have given way to these surreal blotches of darkness and malaise.

who am i now that these passed few years have made me so different. gone from women to men. from virginity to unprotected sex. sobriety too much of a burden. and friends so much less.

when might be a good time to die? tonight, tomorrow, next month? it seems to me death is not something we can ever hunt. that even in suicide it must allow us.

funny t-shirts. funny lives. all puffed up with the things they can do trying to keep up with what happens to them. like clouds full of rain. not wanting to let us have it. not wanting to be empty again.

but eventually they must rain. release all that they've collected. begin the process anew. you get so full of everything there is to consume. i think sometimes it's much better to be hollow. much better than being full and having to let it go.

9:22pm 3-29-04 monday

don't you miss when life was still beautiful? or maybe it still is for you.

don't you ever miss the smiles that weren't coaxed. and friends that were actually close. or maybe you still have those things. i certainly hope so.

when did all the music become angry or ugly. when did love songs become dirges. i know it wasn't always so.

the night baptizes me in a puddle of aloneness. for the very first time i have a name. an identity. i am no one. i am life on its knees.

what i need is a new disease. sometthing real. tangible like cancer. not these shadows cross my heart. or these phantoms in my head. i need a real disease. something i can name. and learn to hate. something i can blame besides myself.

9:38pm 3-29-04 monday

harvesting moments
with a rapier made of
guilt;

sowing seeds of
life in the dirt time
has spilt;

shorter thoughts
shrink shorter still,
into nothing;

gun shot songs
fire rapid bullets of
truth;

piercing the slience
in violent explosions,
splattering the pages
with my inards;

nothing until,
before and before again
like a fact immutable;

the encyclopedia of life
cannot be altered by,
just learn from it as i do;

forgetting only lasts so long
and then life reprises,
that same tired song constantly playing;

watch the needle,
feel it skating gracefully
through your grooves;

feeling its every movement
as it vibrates with the indentations
of the music;

realizing life is no different,
just dust and scratches
in old vinyl;

just a spnning echo
of indentations that
cannot be filled.