Dark Poetry Prose Poetry September 19, 2004 Dark Poetic Prose

09-19-04 8:33pm sunday

your loaded gun don't shoot bullets, but it kills just as well. it's not the ammunition, it's the decision to pull the trigger that's to blame for these wounds. but it's not what only what you do. it's also what you don't.

if you walk like you have nowhere to go. no one's ever going to follow. if you walk no different than a beetle on its back. no one will ever ask you where you're headed or try to help you get there.

paper cups. that's all we are. trying to catch as much rain as we can before it starts to make all those holes in us.

when i was young i never had any sense of the future. the present was all that i could grasp. i was never able to dream a dream like that. or create a wish i would hope to later be answered. other people they seem to have maps inside. destinations and courses that give them a direction to go in. me, i've always steered blind.

they used to try to teach us. tell us to set goals and plan a means to reach them. but i could never do it. commit myself to the threat of success.

it's a high trapeze on which we swing these hearts. no net. always wondering if those arms outreached will grab onto us or if they'll neglect.

i don't know anymore all these years later than i did way back when. i'm not sure i've learned anything except not to trust anyone.

9pm 09-19-04 sunday

cardboard lives. taped seams. no receipts. just packages left on your doorstep by unknown delivery men. they didn't ring the bell. they didn't get a signature. but they made an impression. cardboard lives with gifts inside that someone sent. but to be given or to be received? are they present. or is it just the dust of old dreams being kicked up. are they gifts or just old questions again coming undone.

it's not empty inside, but it's not full either. the contents are free to shuffle about. the ribbons, the wrap they just get in your way as you try to see passed the outside. the ribbons, the wrap seem superficial. given all the transitions we've been through.

trust is a whirlpool it can drown you if you get too close. love is a river full of them. roaring rapids. and these lives are a feeble craft on which to navigate them.

patience might be virtue given the right circumstance, but often it's just a weakness. patience builds friendships, but on the backs on the people who.

i've knelt beside myself on many occasions and tugged on the hem of my life until it had completely come undone.

and then i'd walk. walk for miles more in nothing but that gown. trying my best not to trip, but constantly falling down.

i've met many people. known one or two. but what's unusual is none of them ever really knew me. i couldn't be that much myself even if i wanted to. even as high as i could get. and as low as i could go. i don't think i've ever really been myself except when i was too young to know any better yet.

it's a hollow spasm in the heart when you're woken up to who you really are. not what they see. not what you let them. but the bride your life took the moment it happened. the marriage of the heart and the soul that's been occurring since the moment you entered into existence.

i don't know who or what i am in relation to them. i only know for myself. i don't ever really know what i've felt after the ordeal has ended. it just vanishes. like rain to the ground. where it came from irrelevant. where it has landed quickly forgets.

9:20pm sunday 9-19-04

iron chins. heavy with. burn black. burn hot. never char. alloy eyes float above them. light and strong and just as hard.

grimest stare invades the pupil. shrinks the iris. color slips into oblivion. only darkness.

titanium lips. shiny and expensive. meld to the bones they touch. never let go of them. long after flesh has melted they still clutch.

rhyming dreams like songs forgotten. childhoods taken, yet unneeded. hearts beaten, yet undefeated.

pulses clap in closed fists. knuckles clash with dire resistance.

we are born and that is all. chosen for oxygen and nothing more. sparking blood heaves with electrons. until all neurons have been absorbed.

i remember most the ribcage. expanding and contracting with every frail heartbeat. every tentative breath. at every transition seeming to ask the body must it do it again.

repeat the process. pretend. affect tomorrow with what i can do now. sneak a life from this cage i am in.

counting down. marking minutes. the seconds. their incessant proliferation.

counting forth. time bombs in our heads. detonators in our hearts.

i want to die, but i don't. i want to know why i'm alive, but i can't. i want to forget everything i've ever felt, but i won't.

i saw the end approaching long before it had actually arrived. and i tried to look away. pretend that i hadn't. but it knew.

i met the darkness long before the sun had set. it's always there. only concealed. i built the bridge, but i couldn't cross it.

happiness never even bothered to tease. i was already aware. happiness stood at the center and said kill me now or continue to suffer. i should've, but i couldn't. i should've drowned it right then, but i was afraid.

now it haunts like jacob marley did scrooge. now it tells me all kinds of lies and i believe them. because i'm weak. weak as i've ever been.

now it lays on the edge of the cliff and stares down. asking me to push it. and i don't know. don't know if.

10:54pm sunday 09-19-04

dry eyes. wet limbs. the edge of the water beckons. like lamplight as the sun is on its set. afraid of what you are. what you have been. yourself looks at you like a mime. face painted white. black tears. it's not pretending though. that invisible box is real.

i woke up one morning not myself anymore. i left her behind and continued as if i was the same. even though everything was different.

the apple fell to the ground. but the branch reached down to near itself. the temptation made it's request and we answered aloud. like kindergarten. we raised our arms and recited the alphabet. consecutive and strong. like everything that memory pretends.

i dug the grave. spun the needles as the fabric spent. i imagined blankets. i felt the warmtth, even if only for a moment.

knowing is what we fear. what we ache. knowing that triangular descent. knowing. knowing the love you have spent. knowing like the flame as it suffers no oxyugen.

as hot as it was, now it is dead.