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whispers and screams

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Everywhere, the door’s

slowly come unhinged.

From the floorboards to the ceiling

to the cracks in the trim.

This house which once wasn’t

where grasses were green,

looks less like a home

and more like a dream.

Was this what you envisioned,

when picking the plot?

The land that is dead,

or the bones that now rot.

Everywhere, the trees

weep upon doorsteps.

From the old to the new

are welcome mats unkept.

This dream which once was

where all things begin,

looks more like a nightmare

that never will end.

Was it worth it to build

what you’d one day destroy?

Where the ashes of men

are tilled with the soil.

For now, everywhere

are whispers and screams.

For now, everywhere

no one is home.

Baby Blues

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I sit here, rocking

waiting for you to wake.

In your blanket with the bumps

snuggled close to me.

My butt? It’s numb, from sitting for an hour.

Trying not to move or disturb you from your slumber.

What’s that, my boy, are you laughing at me?

Because Miles, like always

you’re smiling in your sleep.

Or perhaps it’s the birds, singing at our window.

With the curtains pulled shut, this cave of ours is peaceful.

While the air condition hums,

the ceiling fan spins,

I hold your little hand with the baby blues again.

Don’t worry little one, it’s not that I am sad

it’s just you’ve given me such joy,

it hurts to feel glad.

So when you’re good and ready

to laugh and sing and play

just open up those brilliant eyes

and take these blues away.

Darkest Is The Hour

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Starry is the night.

This pain I’d spare for change.

Accept it or reject it,

it’s either way the same.

Misty comes the morning.

An afternoon of rain.

It’s quiet in the evening,

but isn’t that the way?

To offer one protection.

A coat from bustling wind.

If only could my doorstep,

provide the warmth within.

Though darkest is the hour.

The brightest star may fall.

I dare not wish upon it,

but marvel still in awe.

How elegant it sounds.

Sweet agony by dawn.

When days aren’t worth repeating,

who am I in your sky?

The Way Which We Evolve.

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If you look around you’ll notice

certain things are dirty

and certain things are clean.

If everything was dirty,

chances are you’d notice nothing.

If everything was clean, well

you’d notice everything that wasn’t.

I’ll never fully understand the anatomy of women.

Or what it means to be a man.

I’ll never fully comprehend

the way which we evolve.

If stones don’t throw themselves, what’s all this broken glass?

If architects were certain, would houses not be built to last?

So if by chance you notice

everything that wasn’t.

Chances are you’ll notice, that light reveals nothing.

Just empty rooms with empty shelves.

Just echoes full of dust.

Just empty rooms with unlocked doors

we dare not walk through twice.

Hands Of Fate

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I pull back the curtain to let in a little light

noticing that here, now, there is no longer

a table to be turned.

There is no longer a reason to be angry,

or moral, or burnt out by the frailty

of others actions or in-action.

What’s worse is I no longer find it funny,

but just a little sad, that, all the while

I’d been searching for something,

something in everyone (something I’d lost?)

that could never be theirs to give.

It’s become almost impossible to ignore

this benign neutrality that begs the question,

for whose benefit has this effort, my effort,

really ever been for?

And it’s then I start to slip away

like specs of dust my memory’s carried

through light and sound and everything else

that no one but myself can reason.

So I open the curtain just half an inch more

to allow a little light in, where here, now

there is no more to explain—

no weight in which to carry.

When I shook the hands of fate, they offered me a parlay.

(I can’t ever get that back) But—

this much I can do.

The Luxuries We Choose.

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Forty-nine and a half days.

Twenty pages a day—

give or take longer stretches

of concentrated time.

While daunting in it’s infancy,

like running a marathon,

the question here is why?

Wallace described it as a healthier alternative.

King describes it as something to do while uninspired.

I’ll combine the two and for now conclude

it has something to do with maturity and choice.

Now consider the marathon,

where focus is key.

Regulated breathing—essential.

Where urgency is relative.

Because in a marathon,

like most voluntary acts—

where signing up is reason alone for celebration—

no one but yourself cares when you finish.

Now how bout that for a strange commitment?

How bout that for a selfish investment?

Cut off from the world at large

in a room of isolation—

their pain’s not mine to heal.

With forty-nine and half days left.

Forty-nine and half days that,

we’ll live and make excuses for

the luxuries we choose.

Listening To Brian

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He says his name is Brian.

That he’s been addicted to heroine and meth for 30 years

but woke up a year and 8 months ago,

decided to get clean,

and has been ever since.

He wants to know why he can’t get closer to our film set.

So I tell him it’s nothing personal, that it’s protocol.

He says he’s taking courses provided by

The California Department of Rehabilitation.

That he likes to edit video, how his instructor is very supportive

but he only likes to edit the things he shoots—

how some days he wakes up with extreme anxiety,

depression, and can’t get the idea out of his head

that he’s going to die.

He wants to know what PM stands for and why the woman in gray told him he couldn’t hang around the cameras.

I tell him that means Production Manager, and that she’s the production manager.

He maintains balance with his walker, and says he understands.

He says the hardest part wasn’t getting sober, but that after he did he realized that he really had no one.

No friends. No lover. No family.

I try to get a word in edgewise, but know it’s not my place.

He talks a while longer before wrap is called, then asks my name.

I tell him that it’s David.

That he should be proud of himself for the changes he’s made.

We shake hands and say goodbye.

For the next two hours I pick up other people’s garbage, wrap cable, and load a production truck full of equipment.

For the next two hours until now

I think of Brian, my life, and what we have in common.

Is it the night that’s hard to get through?

Or the day that’s just the same?

He says his name is Brian.

I hope he’s doing well.

Halfway through the day, tired but still going.

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Hugging Blake, I tell him,

you remind me how amazing people can be.

Shaking hands, he says,

“you know you’re always my first call.”

We work hard together, so

I’m honest with him, and he’s honest with me.

Wiping sweat, we share a laugh and talk about our spouses.

“I just wanted to give you guys something that would help,

not something you’d get rid of in a year or two.”

We’re halfway through the day, tired but still going.

“I’m really happy for you both,” he says, “you can use me as a reference.”

Going back to work, I understand the world a little more.

And in my tiny nook of it, I know

that nothing is forgotten.

Remembering again, that semester in the park

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I wasn’t seeing anything clearly

that semester in the park.

All that I could see was

everyone else talking, and

their perception of me.

So I fell silent in paranoia,

paralyzed by the idea that no-one could help

this growing unrest only I could feel.

And what an awful feeling, crippled in fear

that the mind, like a bridge, with enough force

could so easily collapse.

Because I wasn’t who I was a year before.

Or a year before that—I didn’t want to be.

I didn’t have a clue of who I was or where I wanted to go, you see—

It felt as if my sense of meaning had dissolved.

As if my efforts were for not.

And as I sat staring, watching all my friends disappear

it felt as if all my life had been a lie,

like someone else was pulling the strings.

And the longer I kept quiet,

the less there was to say.

The longer I stood still,

the more I wanted to run.

See people don’t just drown,

they tread water till they no longer can.

Some try for shore, others the horizon.

Except I wasn’t seeing anything clearly

that semester in the park,

trying to rationalize my fathers death and why

I hated myself so deeply for something no one could explain.

You know, if I close my eyes long enough I can still see that teenage me doing everything he could to keep it together.

Confused.

Isolated.

Stone faced and embarrassed.

And what’s a stone to do best?

It sinks.

Ambivalent because,

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the world is full of stock responses.

Drunken rants and sober prophets.

The type of things people say to do 

that even in their cool sincerity

would never do themselves.

Are capable people incapable of good advice?

Or are jokes just easier to offer?

Is saying you don’t know so hard to admit?

Or are we so prone to speak that it doesn’t matter?

With nonchalance and anxious laughter

everyone knows everything you don’t.

With due respect and eyes that wander

everyone’s got the answer for things they can’t control.

In a world of stock responses—

I hear the words that don’t come out

and do my best to listen.

I take them with a grain of salt

and read between the lines.

I see their good intentions get

distorted by this feeling,

that no one has the answers, and some things never change—

I’ve just left the conversation

long before its end.