Dark Poetry Prose Poetry October 3, 2004 Dark Poetic Prose

10-03-04 sunday 9:41pm

now and then. you see farther than usual. the scope of your vision widens both outside and within. you see the future like distant planets you'll never get to. and yourself, like a spring, all coiled up inside that skin. all twisted and compressed and dying to break through.

you can supress the urge. you can find ways to make yourself forget the fact. but no matter what you do at some point, it always comes back.

now and then. like some storybook transition. the catchphrase of quiet desperation that so many lives echo with.

the stars move. the clouds stiffen. ambling forward with time's insipid progression. branded like cattle. herded as. from one corral to the next. childhood, adolescence, adulthood, marraige, children, then retirement. the worn out plateaus in life's vapid descent.

now and then you notice someone besides yourself. besides your family and friends. you don't think too much about it, but you do wonder whether they noticed you.

when everything and everyone starts to look the same, the only you have left to want is to find something new.

10:32pm sunday 10-03-04

nevermind. truth is better left to when you're still young enough to mend the holes it's ripped. nevermind why i did. or didn't. all that matters is the finish. because as time goes on ends are all that we have. they pile up like raindrops in a bucket.

then we empty it out and start again.

sometimes i think it would be nice to be fragile. then maybe once in a while someone would be gentle.

no one thinks too much about the stones they kick as they're walking down the street. no one worries if they'll get broken. where they'll land. what they'll hit. just because the outside is hard they tend to assume that they won't be damaged.

but more often than not, that hard outside is there because what's underneath is much too soft.

10-03-04 11:27pm sunday

i was almost ready to say. like a tea kettle whistling. about to burst. but instead i just turned off the flame.

i always sit here night after night so consumed with trying to understand why they are that i tend to overlook the answers. i always sit here with myself like a tea kettle on the stove. the whistle becomes a shriek. but no one hears me screaming.

i guess maybe i don't want them to.

i'm not looking to win. just maybe break even. if life is a lottery i don't want a ticket. i'll sit this contest out. content to let someone else win it.

i only know that the back door is the best place to enter. and the best way to exit. cause there's so much less shame in failure that's secret.

i only know that i've not been disappointed in a very long time. because i expect nothing from anyone. i only know that life isn't as beautiful as it appears from the outside looking in. and that there are degrees. thousands of degrees of happiness. and everyone is content with a different climate.

i only know how to let go. not how to hold on. these words feign some half hearted handshakes, but it's so obvious.

i only know how to let them go. it's the only love i can truly give. like the ocean to the sunset. all we can do is marvel at how gracefully it swallows it.