Dark Poetry Prose Poetry July 4, 2003 Dark Poetic Prose

7-04-03 friday 9pm brick NJ

alone extends far beyond the boundaries of who and when.

i am a loner in the truest sense. i could live my whole life alone and be neither surprised by it nor any more unhappy than i am at this very moment.

lives calculate agendas. people collect friends.

i'll trust you, but only when it's safe to. and that will never be. i'll listen, but never say. because words are weak. and speech can't explain.

there are no days. only nights with too much sun. there is no life. only the space between the dying beginning and the dying being done.

it isn't hard to lie. it's just hard to keep dragging it around with you as it grows. it isn't a matter of why. just a matter of who knows.

one life can't be enough. and yet it's too much. one love can't be the only one. but it might be all that you want.

one day spent lingering on the nothings that clutter lives. those same nothings that remind you are alive. one day lost in the paradox of living and dying. slumped at the keys as if they might know what you do not. one night without a heartbeat, but still breathing, bed-ridden hearts surviving on morphine. death-bed kisses giving away the last of their belongings.

7-04-03 friday brick NJ 10:45pm

it's the things that aren't us that i love. stretches of highway too empty for any human heart. songs too sad to listen to more than once.

i'm alone. always have been. always must. you can't change that.

i'm different and the same. red blood. blue veins. but it isn't the same.

heart on the horizon. eyes cast further than. feet churning for the next hill. watching the world pass by in steady revolution. like a movie reel. slow and deliberate. easy like the bottles when night is assaulting. but brighter still. sun sharp and pointed. traffic anxious and seeking. pedalling as if that rotation is different. cadence stronger than the mind. pedalling as if revolutions could find. naked pavement. hot tires on hotter blacktop. and the masses. fluctuating as they will. lives embracing the sun. the heat. the moment they've become. all that they are. that these journeys could never find in me.

missing like that last puzzle piece. wanted, but not found. lost, but not forgotten. alone as any life can be. not seeking. just wandering in quiet deliberation. the flesh melts under the heat. the flesh succumbs to the temptation of. once in a while it does. i don't need reason. just to know that it happened is enough. i don't need to tell you why or when again. we both are quite sure that every time will be the last. they haven't, but i suppose eventally they must. they haven't been yet, but i would guess tomorrow has to be plotting against us. it's her only choice when. when she's been so abused. so abused as it is easy for us to do. spit on tomorrow because today is praising us. laugh as the night moves steady. full of all the passion that we trust she must be.

i don't know. don't really want to. the reasons that other people keep. the ways in which they realize the things that are slightly out of reach. or even why they do. the mystery or the danger. the comedian or the actor. doesn't matter what you are. we're all people in the end. when the lies burn their bridges we're all stranded. nothing more than fleshly flotation devices that waves will surely upend.

if there are more empty bottles than full ones, i'm not surprised. i'm not impressed. myself. the teller of tales. the asker of questions whose answers i never really wanted. i've been there. done that. or at least i've seen it happen somewhere. maybe real. maybe pretend.

but it's much more obvious than luck would have it. it's way more shallow than life would expect. so much for expectations. so much for friends. night moves much faster than i do. but then again, it has less time. sunrise. sunset. they're hardly separate the moments. i heard it once and i was taken. but then i heard it again and knew that i was asking too much. knew that life had different plans for us.

the smell of beer ripe and willing to choose the cells that it will be killing. isn't that just what we're all trying to do. erase the past and invent a future we can't have. isn't that just what life entails. leave those days alone and move on to find there's nothing better. that you're wasting your time. that time has always been playing with us. isn't that what you were asking to begin with. why. why here. why now. ever like a verse without a rhyme. no climax. just questions you'd rather not ask. no reasons. just flesh craving that which. it might've been. but we missed it. it could've been something, but it wasn't. no surprises. no more unhappy. just tonight. tomorrow. all the rest.

i'm not surprised. i'm not more discontent. i've just forgotten again what it means to live. so many sunrises. so many sunsets. it ends, but i don't know when. it will end. but not soon enough. it loves, but for all the wrong reasons. all the wrong people. lost was never so much as, until i found it. lonely never knew until. then i showed it. it doesn't end. forever so consistent.

ask yourself why. ask yourself how and then let it pause for a moment. there's nothing in this life worth risking. there's nothing in this world worth loving. it all comes down to. friends. enemies. anything. they all have their agendas. they all have thier perspectives. harsher still than when we met. colder still as these years condemn.

no need to forget. no reason to regret. just time chasing the lives she's built. no lovers. just friends who haven't. or can't. tomorrow no. the next day not. it was something no amount of writing can contend. it was more than. you left with your dignity still intact. while i shuffled away so much less than. you never faltered from your course while i let the feeling take it all.

over doesn't say. no beginning can explain. i'll still miss you when so much time has paased and we can no longer be friends. i still miss you when you hate the sight of me. i'll still be wishing long after wishing has given in.