Dark Poetry Prose Poetry September 22, 2004 Dark Poetic Prose

8:30pm 9-22-04 wednesday

dirty pockets hold these fists. the coins they grip. trying to keep it clean. tempted to, but not counting it.

the driest gulches in your wetest places. envelopes of craving full with telling corrsepondence.

with time everything fades. even the blackest ink. even the pictures placed under your skin. everything fades, but in different phases.

rivers undistilled running through your deepest veins. dirty water. looming sediment.

it changes.

it gouges the edge you used to stand atop and look down upon. it digs. it's movement is a pickax. chipping away at.

dirty pockets in the river bed. the rocks that impede the fluid's progress.

it consumes. sucks you in.

dirty pockets. clean fists.

everything changes. even this.

10pm 9-22-04 wednesday

arm yourself with what's inside. count the bricks as the walls do rise. memory is the mortar. life the architect. count the stories as the building grows. no need for doors. no use for windows.

the hammer cries weak against. the nails bend. blunted tips.

dress yourself in the mud we've made. dirt and rain. thick, swampy attire. shadows none and hours hooked like bait. fishing for the yeras that have escaped.

still heart. empty skin. just pictures. pictures between the pores. skating the holes' rims.

the night she is an artful seamstress. takes this tattered garb and makes it fit us.

the night she is the only savior i could ever trust. promises of dreams. and sleep. and everything that isn't us.

killing yourself with what you are. arming yourself with what's inside.

bramble grows on pink cheeks. thickets rush the through the emptiness. be willing to be weak. it's your greatest strength.

be willing to hurt. to own up to it. be willing to drown. drown in the surge.

09-22-04 10:22pm wednesday

holding hands as children sometimes do. innocent grasp. lives to hope. wind to the moon.

lighting quick. lust to love. eager flames. zippo hearts coax in the wind.

holding lightly. tenantive grip. yarn fingers knit patterns in.

quilted lives. all padded with. feel the soft down as you lay yourself into it.

trip the wire. spread the fence. your memory is the margin. your heart is the measurement.

feed the wounds with more infection. delight in the bubbles rise as the bacteria sets in.

forget yourself and remember them.

knowing. knowing this is who i am.

knowing as bright as any day can be. every night is that much darker than.

10:51pm 9-22-04 wednesday

i can't answer. can't say hello to one more minute of having to be what i've been. dealing its hands as it does. poker nights request the players place their bets. but i can't risk even one more chip.

i can't be what i wanted to. nor what they expected. i can't salute this life like a flag and pledge my allegience.

i can't answer. can't imagine traversing that mountain again. as if there's something to be gained from repeating all those steps.

we made the whole world our ocean. and risk our surfboard. we made tomorrow seem irrelevant. we succeeded in forgetting. but memory would not accept.

i have my reasons. there are many. i have my excuses. like doves out of cages.

we give in to the feelings. since the feeling is all we have. we give in. because we're human. yet it wants more than we can. the tide ebbs and we wonder what sand the will build for us next.

it's simple. it's easy. pigeons carry their mesages. and we receive them.

the mortar dries and those bricks are set.

i couldn't say. couldn't question. so i lay there. shadow ontop of shadow as if i am dead.

maybe i am.

i lay there as if it ever really mattered and think to myself that it shouldn't have, but it did.

09-22-04 111pm wednesday

didn't know who i was hanging up on, but i did it just the same. leaves to the ground as their colors change.

didn't know why i couldn't, just wasn't about to. all those suns on the brink of day that refused.

i don't know why you couldn't know me better than you do. or why i couldn't know you.

i don't know why tomorrow didn't have a better plan. floating as it will on the cusp of our thoughts. it always seemed so willing and yet it always fought.

we could've tried to be something we're not, but instead we chose to be just who we are. we could've tried to displace the water with our own thoughts, but instead we chose to flow with it right or wrong.

i don't know why it's so hard to say hello to the people that i miss. like tears on coffins they seem so uselesss.

i guess i thought more than i bet. i guess i wagered my heart would die before i would run out of playing chips.

i can't say hello. can't say goodbye. they meet. i don't think tomorrow meant to mislead us, but she did. like dreams do. like sleep is. you wake up not knowing where you are. you wake up a new person, but it all comes back so quick. and you are yourself again. never knowing who you really should've been.