Home » Posts tagged 'people'

Tag Archives: people

Ambivalent because,

Posted on by | Leave a comment

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.

Hard-Boiled Eggs and the End of This Chapter

Posted on by | 2 Comments

This coffee shop is cold.

Reading Murakami

my vision’s blurred by

inconvenient tears.

Why are all your thoughts so uncertain?

It’s knowing that any explanation is probably false.

Coming to these kind of places

in search of conversation? To escape myself?

This place where everyone seems so distant?

Propagated by the idea that coffee shops are for intellectuals and pseudo intellectuals alike

so for that matter, what’s even the point?

To think there was a time when I’d walk up to any of these strangers just to invade their private world.

Now reading Murakami,

I barely lift my head.

Tired eyes and apprehension.

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Getting away turned out to be the easy part—it only took 12 years.

Getting here would prove to be a chaotic mess—22 years hence.

Except I never got better, we never got help, and it slowly got worse.

I could draw the parallels between my father and I

but what would that matter—you only know us from one side.

And they say that children being a product of suicide tend to show a lack of interest, almost as if nothing really matters.

Well, to be candid, let’s just say I know a guy who can vouch for that.

I mean, how do you explain being on a train

wishing it would crash, just so life would slow the fuck down?

Just enough so that even the slightest change of scenery made any sort of sense.

Is this room ok? Isn’t this house nice?

How do you explain not wanting attention because it made you so damn nervous that even the easiest task seemed incomprehensible?

Do you want to go outside? Make some friends?

Who do you turn to when you can see through everything and everyone, knowing they’re in just as much shit as you?

So inward you go—wanting nothing but to be alone.

At some point you come to realize that it’s the only place you can control.

The only catch is, that train never crashes. And everything you thought at some point would be figured out, is just another heart racing conversation you swore you’d never have again.

The only parallel I can draw between the two, is chaos.

The other is our attempt at a logical excuse.

But there is no excuse.

Only tired eyes and apprehension.

The Old Wood Fence

Posted on by | Leave a comment

I remember sitting

by the old wood fence

the alley, silent as a whisper—

The birds then sang

like they do now.

And just like a boy

hits puberty, I still don’t know

what’s wrong with me?

I watch the light

claw its way down the alley

and where shadows hide

I look for clues.

In broken bottles.

In rusted metal.

In pavement laced with weeds.

By the old wood fence

with its perfect knots — I scream

to hear my answer.

Two Worlds Within A World

Posted on by | Leave a comment

Your world’s in careful order

while mine’s in disarray,

I’ve tried to read between the lines

but there’s just empty space.

When dumb luck gets regarded

for gentle hands of fate,

I sit for hours wondering

whose world has been misplaced?

This fault line, it grows deeper

the longer that I think,

what good are silver lining’s with

prospects neither believe?

Is what I forge through fiction

just white lies for dispute?

I try to keep my distance

to organize what’s true.

Seems when I find the meaning

these worlds they split apart,

now mine’s in careful order

like yours was from the start.

As for that space between?

There’s no room left for me.

There’s nothing to be found

I’ve lived there long enough.

I’m happier with words that mean

exactly what they mean.

I’m happier to be a part

than live in disarray.

If it’s time that pulls the strings

than it’s I who’d rather be,

two worlds within a world

alone—

three worlds to form a whole.

Answers(but who’s to say)

Posted on by | Leave a comment

My heart’s in heavy motion—

like a pendulum I sway,

back and forth, regardless of

the shadows of the day.

Would it hurt you to feel better?

Is it sadness or just sad?

I play this broken record till

it doesn’t sound that bad.

When questions sound like answers

it’s there I feel at home, but

impressions get mistaken for

first readings of a poem.

It’s how I’ve formed the theory

that everyone’s alone,

perhaps then not a pendulum—

I’m an ever sinking stone.

Reaching For The Sky

Posted on by | Leave a comment

It’s something unforgiving,

reaching for the sky.

You know you’ll never reach it

but still each day you’ll try.

You bargain with the devil

in mornings softest light,

then hear the serpent hissing, from

the inside of your night.

It feels like not knowing

whether father will be mad,

it feels like how nothing

could stop your mothers tears.

And how when you were young

the only control you had

was the controller in your hand

as if games could numb the fear.

How no matter which star you chose

nothing ever changed,

star light, star bright meant everything

just wishing to be saved.

It’s something that we choose, you see

reaching for the sky

to a place that seems forgiving

on nights we’d rather die.

It’s a place where mothers weeping

could cure the land of pain,

it’s a place that’s unforgiving

which no one can explain.

I see, the dear departed

whose choice goes unannounced,

to try to understand it’s like

magnifying doubt.

It’s something worth forgiving, though

please don’t ask me why,

the ground’s not good enough for us

still reaching for the sky.

Perhaps an understanding then

for those which tempest-tossed—

and lay them down, each childhood friend

whose memory isn’t lost.

Love That Book

Posted on by | Leave a comment

You recommend a book to me.

I read it till my eyes grow tired.

It’s not a long book by any means,

but a book this good doesn’t have to be—

To make my eyes feel warm like fire.

This Shallow Darkness

Posted on by | 1 Comment

It’s 8am when I mix NyQuil and coffee, knowing

getting out of bed can be just the same as staying in.

It’s sort of like how kind words sound profane

when they’ve just bout lost there meaning.

Washing my face, have I reused this puppy dog look

one too many times that all that’s left is ugly?

I’ve made mistakes before, though this, it feels different, or

is it exactly the same one I make every time I lock the door?

It’s like hearing the front gate slam shut

then looking out the window, only to see yourself walking away.

The brain sends signals to the mouth—consider screaming—

but what’s a voice without an ear of reason?

What’s the point of footnotes, when you’re drawing them in chalk?

And even though it doesn’t rain that often, on good days it does.

So brushing yellow teeth, I spit blood into the sink

then cough a couple times before padding down the hall.

Now slouching towards the sunlight, it’s effortless this pain.

These calluses remind me that I’m doing the right thing.

Milling about I feel nothing, so it’s now I know to leave.

That rainbow in the sky, oh how it bends before it bleeds.

By the time I catch myself at the corner

and reattach this shallow darkness to my feet,

it’s a cool, crisp sort of day, where the smog smells sweet.

It’s a cool, crisp sort of silence, watching traffic in the street.

It’s a cool, crisp morning.

And I’ve no reason to complain.