As If We Existed

It wasn’t ever fun

Even when it lasted

There was always hidden

A motive and agenda

Something I couldn’t figure from afar—

I needed microscopic certainty

That I’d have to disappear

In order to remember—

For them to forget—

That either of us had ever existed

still as the evening air

For some reason, people

just keep on sticking around—

no matter how I push them away.

And God knows I’ve tried, yet

still as the evening air

they remain, willing and shifty

to see me from my darkness

onward, till dawn.

Plain clothes

Let’s make this hard demeanor

seem effortless as clothes,

worn to keep you even

keeled, careful and alone, but

we’re not an island, flower petal

rock or sinking stone,

he’ll take the time, reverse the crime

and kill me in plain clothes.

Isolation

It is as cold

as a steel locket,

isolation

loosely hangs

two chains from a collar,

white as bone, worn

from the hours, of nuance

carefully placed by the bedside,

waiting to be opened

polished and willing

as obligatory as peace

before, the inevitable dawn

which beckons us to

repeat, our autumnal fall

from the burdens we carry.

Weird.

Did you know that feeling weird

suggests something supernatural or uncanny

and that feeling this way,

unsettled and mysterious to even yourself

is an extraordinary occasion for

growth and development?

Well it is, and for that, I applaud you

on this ability of estrangement

we so often take for granted, though I

take as a blessing, because you are a blessing.

Call me crystal and I’ll make this clear

Call me crystal and I’ll make this clear

The world’s your oyster, won’t you be a dear?

Remember us, when you’re famous

Such a dangerous manifestation

Bite the bullet trigger happy kid

They said break a leg behind closed eyelids

Opportunity, don’t blow it

You’re a shooting star, now show it

Call me Ishmael cause I am drowning quick

Wailing never got you through the thick

What more could we ask for?

Through closed doors

Another kid’s born in the grave

By the third day he’ll be saved

Another wick is burnt too late

Just one more spirit and you’ll feel great

Wipe the Chalice, next in line to drink

Every word has meaning, child

who’s never’d time to blink

season of change

Never had a bad intention

I just always made some bad decisions

that usually got way out of hand

and discredited my good intent

though looking a bit harder now

I guess I was just angry and confused

and figuring it out the best I knew how

given time, place, and circumstance

I mean I was just 16 then 19 — 23 then 25

now 31 doesn’t feel so old, in fact

I feel much younger than my former self

ready to dive back into that season of change.

swimming circles

like a goldfish in their bowl

you don’t ever get to leave

staying where they keep you

what a pity or relief?

hell I don’t know the difference

between seeing and belief

but that fishbowl you’ve been swimming

looks far too small for me.

so if you’ve thought what I am saying

half a dozen times

your chances of remembering

are just as good as mine.

like a goldfish in their bowl

I don’t ever get to leave

still I keep on swimming circles

headed for the sea.

on the mountaintop

We spoke a lot out there about how different folks live their lives,

about the idea of success and what it really means to feel comfortable in circumstance,

about family and virtue,

giving back and taking more consciously.

We say the things up there

on the mountaintop,

which are hard to say among the crowds and noise of the working world’s downturned head,

but no less we come back down renewed.