Dark Poetry Prose Poetry July 13, 2003 Dark Poetic Prose

7-13-03 sunday 8:33pm brick NJ

it turns out i was just breathing heavier, not better. that bottle of water became something else and i could barely tell. the nights kept getting shorter. thick fogs that would still be there in the morning.

in time i'd forget that i'd ever been anyone other than this. my past just a book i'd read once, but couldn't have written.

i haven't lost myself. i've just been trying to and not succeeding.

drawing curved lines on the paper. building thoughts outside my head. typing tender at the keyboard. stroking each word like a fresh virgin lover. last road back to that hasn't been barricaded.

it turns out i wasn't listening as long as i thought. just hearing. soaking up people's words with nothing to show for it. lives crossing, but never connecting. a network of faces moving onward. messages in coaxial bottles yielding to nothing and no one. meaning little if anything more than breathing.