Dark Poetry Prose Poetry June 24, 2003 Dark Poetic Prose

6-24-03 tuesday 8:42pm brick NJ

when it's over, i'll ask myself when did it start. like watching a movie in rewind. it's all a blur and out of time.

when i die i'll wonder when i ever lived. like suffocating. only so much slower. like drowning though you know how to swim.

the pages guard my onliest thoughts. stalwart soldiers armed at the gates of sadness. while time digs deep trenches for the moat that will soon surround. while the drawbridge is raised i watch from a high tower not envying the ground.

when enough announces that it's arrived i'll ask it where it's been. why we never met sooner. how long it will be staying.

if i write shorter,
like this,
in words eager
to claim their purpose;

in words full
with anguish,
dying just to taste
one healthy breath;

if i write shorter,
like this,
in thoughts
much more desperate
to effect;

in thoughts older
than memory can teach,
full of an emptiness,
and an originless void that
that predates my being;

the themes are so familiar. dying. living. all that falls between them. like every creature that longs for, i hunger needlessly. like every life that has ever, i constantly question, but have no answers.

somtimes writing makes it clearer. other times more blurry than before. sometimes writing is merely a reacton to. and others it's who you are. the only way to stay in touch with the person you're becoming as time becomes surer, but yourself not so much. as life draws its borders and you're still straddling the four corners.

it used to be about someone else. but i've returned to myself that much more lost than the last time. it was easy when it was about someone else. no hope at understanding. just one of life's little mysteries to make it more charming. but now it's back to me. and i don't want to go there again. i don't want to be lost in myself when there are much better places to be lost in. i don't want to go to where it began without any distance to defend.

6-24-03 9:40 pm brick NJ tuesday

i write without a reader. just conscience's footfalls on untread paths. i plague myself without a disease to blame. just sadness bloating my fractured heart.

the someday's that i used to worship have all turned to false gods. possibility's once stable altar has fallen down. i write without a reader. rhyme without a reason. just fingers caught in the dance. just the plague i've spread becoming the disease that i am.

i've been tired much too long for someone this young. been broken too many times for such a jaded person. wisdom knows not where it lands when penny lives toss their coins into fountain hearts. wisdom does not float when the water is low and it's burdens heavy.

i've missed you, though you've been around. it's different. haven't you noticed how? people become tasks. conversations become discussions. what once were moments shared become only time passed. it should be easy when there's nothing there trying to reach deeper than the flesh. it should be easy. i guess it is on some levels. i asked you to and so you made your decision. i asked you to. now i have to live with it.

i miss you, though you're not so far from. i guess i expected that you'd opt for something more than. should've known better. i guess i always imagined that those long lost conversations. all those precious moments would somehow remember us again. should've known better. i asked you to choose and you did. now i have to live with it.