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Paranoia

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These days of paranoia.

I’ve done it to myself.

The skin around my finger’s tight and raw.

My front tooth’s chipped and my back’s out of place.

I black out for my own protection.

Everyone’s concern, I’d rather soon forget.

Everyone understands until I mention it.

Will you bring me back home

to that place I left but never left?

Is the only reason I escaped

to remember until death?

A slippery slope?

No,

it’s just one I haven’t leapt.

I know I should be smarter, but

I’m an adult now, and

I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to anymore.

Besides, I’m a sucker for punishment.

A slave to myself.

I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t need it to survive.

I’d be stupid if I didn’t admit that this has all just been a long winded good bye.

How strong are we?

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We’re a very resilient bunch.

And we don’t give ourselves enough credit.

We give ourselves hell, and worry half to death.

We sweat, and stir, and think ourselves depressed.

We apologize for feeling in fear we’re being judged.

We’d rather bury our shame than see ourselves alive.

I know because I have,

and it’s a mean bitch to break.

It’s a cheerful judge and jury

who know nothing of our sorrow,

who predict us by our sin

and relish in our fate.

That other voice inside ourselves would rather condemn us for our failures

than see us for how far we’ve come.

Our life’s a disappearing act that’s always on display.

We struggle, fight, without respite until our dying day.

Nothing’s ever good enough.

No one is here to stay.

Would it kill you to feel at peace, in the presence of yourself?

Would it kill you to feel at home, in the love of someone else?

Not everyone’s out to get you, but some I’m afraid are.

Your private life’s not meant to be the butt of someone’s joke.

It’s when I whisper to myself, I feel most sincere.

While everyone is sleeping Lord it’s then I shed a tear.

It’s enough to drown my sorrow, enough to drown myself.

I’d give up everything you know to become someone else.

But even that is false I know in fact my heart regardless breaks,

for all the fattened silly saps who refuse to embrace,

this love we harness willing, this love we share in doubt,

this love we try to hide behind in fear we’d love ourselves.

It’s hard now to be honest when I’ve only half the plot,

still I know that I’m trying even when it seems I’m not.

You see, if we were a system

or a code that one could break,

this life would be unbearable, a pre-determined fate.

It’s why feeling lost is common.

It’s why letting go is hard.

It’s why seeing our own reflection feels like staring in the dark.

It’s why a single day seems agonizing.

And years just skip likes stones.

It’s while thoughtless in the afternoon

I feel I’m getting old—

except for children passing

one falls and scrapes his knee,

he cries and cries

then like the sun, he rises and forgets—

It’s then that I’m reminded, how old I felt at 9

and all the weight I carried, was really never mine.

What often gets me’s this, how quickly we forget.

How strong are we?

We’re strong as fuck,

resilient until death.

Observational Therapy

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“It’s a hip place, I guess?

I should have worn hipper clothes.

That’s the trouble when your wife dresses you!”

This is what the English Lit professor says to the guy behind him

who I can tell he imagines is judging him thoroughly for his attire—his words are, “I’m kind of a square.”

I know he’s an English Lit professor because he’s said it loud enough for homeless in NOHO to take note.

“You got your style and I got mine,” says the guy in leather boots, leather jacket, torn jeans, and stringy jet black hair, clearly perturbed.

I don’t want to notice any of this but I do.

Nor do I want to pay attention to the overly dramatic yet cynically pretentious English Lit professor’s attempt to make small talk with the regulars—but I do.

He points out all the quirky nuances that make this place great,

like the hand scribbled signs, one that tells you To Take Phone Calls Outside! And another that states This Is Not Studio City!

He gets a real kick out of those while he fakes making a phone call.

I can’t blame him though, he probably doesn’t get out much.

Eventually the English Lit professor gets his oat milk latte and goes.

The guy in leather does the same, only looks a little more defeated than when he entered.

It’s then this overly polite weirdo-nerd asks me for my seat so he can plug his computer in to charge while he does everything but do work on said computer.

I know this because after I say no, a chair opens up next to me and he does just that.

Except when I tell him no, he turns confused, and I feel like an asshole.

It’s then I realize I’m supposed to ignore my surroundings and get back to my book like everyone else seems to be doing—

page 38’s a doozy.

The boy doesn’t want to tell his father his step-mother raped his recently deceased brother—but he does.

We bring it on ourselves, I guess.

Judgement, I mean.

That’s the problem with cynical, shamelessly self-involved squares—

we can smell our own.

I just consider it observational therapy.

Let The Dog Run Free

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Now comes the time of alternate opinions,

alternate thoughts and alternate feelings.

The kind you don’t dare say out loud.

I wonder how much pain it’ll take to stop?

I wonder how much love is too much?

I wonder how many nights are lost because—

When biting your nails to the bone seems useless

then what else is there, really but to stop.

Or else keep biting, bone can’t be that hard can it?

Still I’d rather draw the blinds or go outside.

Hell I’d rather lay down and die than live a lie.

You see, these things we don’t dare say out loud,

reserved for private evenings

start to find us in our daytime logic,

prying to be let out like a mangled dog.

And won’t we wear our self destruction like a choker.

Like a badge of honor.

Like a cruel

cold

chain—of events.

Won’t we kneel and pray before we give our due.

Won’t we commit ourselves to countless acts of excruciating

self-reliance just to know we did it alone.

It’s that feeling of being so good that it feels you’re no good at all.

That feeling of having tried so hard, for so long,

against so many odds, such awful scrutiny

and then being told I told you so,

like all your effort was for not—but it was.

Now comes the time of alternate opinions,

where everybody told you so, where everybody seems to know.

Now comes the time of alternate thoughts,

where nothing seems right, where everything feels wrong.

Now comes the time of alternate feelings,

where maybe you jumped the gun, but who am I to say?

I put the barrel to my temple a long time ago.

And let the dog run free.

We speak a different language,

I know that you do too—

It’s the kind they don’t dare speak out loud.

It’s the kind they put us down for.

(we owe ourselves) The Real Thing

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We don’t often get the real thing.

Or allow ourselves to be vulnerable while at peace.

Often we’re told to keep our chin up.

To stand up straight, and don’t ask questions.

Often we’re told lies.

Boy don’t speak out of turn.

Missy know your place.

It’s when we answer fearful calls.

It’s when we ask the harder questions.

It’s when we choose to be defiant,

to be honest with ourselves,

it’s when we find our truth sincere

that we start to become most vulnerable.

Then, and only then

will we allow ourselves that peace,

the piece that we’ve been missing,

that feels so familiar, so simple, so pure.

So much so that pure feels like a dirty word.

—

It’s this peace we can deny our whole lives over,

or accept that we’re a match

ready and willing to burn ourselves alive—

just to get the real thing.

That Day

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I was walking a hopeful road that day.

It felt almost like a dream beside her

looking at the ocean, high above the city below.

Tall blades of grass swayed golden in the sun.

From that high up the ocean appeared silent,

and the black dots riding waves were people

gliding against the tranquil bed of water.

Like a stenographer I listened while she spoke

nodding in agreement, wanting her to like me.

We talked all about everything that day

and she sang Life Is A Highway while I blushed.

It’s hard to read you, she said. But I didn’t mind.

Because the world seemed new and exciting,

like nothing else mattered but our feet and the ground.

Everyone else was COVID crazy but

we had that, before the first kiss feeling

that no one can deny, that nothing could dismantle—

you know, that private little world between ignorance and bliss.

Nobody quite wore a baseball cap like her.

Or looked at me with such uncertain eyes,

like she knew then I couldn’t be trusted.

Or perhaps she thought I was it?

The future took a different course

when the surf died down and the people disappeared.

No wave can last forever, but

it’s remembering those tiny moments,

the inside jokes, and playful voices.

It’s remembering the good stuff,

while the bad we just let rest.

It’s remembering we’re human,

human enough to forgive,

and human enough to be civil.

It’s the poems written in bed

and the songs sung in our infancy—

The Essence Of Her Core (unpublished).

It’s knowing I’ll see her again, as friends

and I’ll be glad to hear her voice,

to see her smile, and know she’s well.

The road may not be ours together anymore

but that doesn’t mean the road’s less hopeful.

That doesn’t mean that I’ll stop walking.

Pretending

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I can not keep pretending

that things were all o.k.

when in fact I’d climbed

that Brooklyn roof

long before they got worse.

You see, the memory has it’s way

of cutting up the past,

rearranging it like a scrapbook

where you only have to see the good.

I can’t keep pretending

that things could go back

to the way they were,

even before I moved to Maine.

Because even if I could,

it wasn’t how I imagine.

Second chances only work

the second time around.

After that it’s just sad.

It’s denial.

It’s that last drink you take

knowing you don’t need another.

It’s that expensive perfume you buy

in hope’s it will cover your mistakes.

It’s the pictures you post smiling

having almost killed one another

the night before.

When make believe becomes your norm

I guess it gets some people by

but,

I can not keep pretending—

I had jumped so long ago.

Abuse

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Abuse, abuse is all we know.

It’s what we’re good at.

You can see it in the eyes.

Spelled in cigarette smoke.

The vape clouds.

Each yellowing smile.

Abuse, it’s what we’re good at.

Our unspoken bond.

It’s our courage.

Our rebellion.

Thinking ourselves to an early grave.

Then paying a stranger to lay our roses.

Forcing ourselves to sleep in a cell we call a bedroom.

Abuse, it’s all we know.

It’s what we’re good at.

What keeps us going.

What keeps us tough.

One drink is never the cure.

One love is one too few.

Abuse, it’s what we’re good at.

Denying right for wrong.

Selling ourselves short.

Sleeping before death.

Cradling despair.

Overthinking till we can’t tell if we ever thought at all.

Abuse, abuse is all we know.

It’s terrifying to grip.

But hardest to let go.

We crawled before we walked.

And sang before we spoke.

The message mouthed for nonsense—

I’m starting to understand.

Let’s hope it’s not too late.

Happy New Year

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So it’s your last day, aye!

Then you’re off the hook,

sayonara! ur revoir!

c’est la vie!

365 days of poetry

is no minor feat, especially

the third time around, Geez—

to say your daily musing will be missed

would be an understatement, I admit

I’m guilty of my daily dose, except—

Char, you’ve got moxie.

(“and that’s what I appreciates most about you”)

So when the clock strikes twelve

full of champagne cheer, Hark!

Hear, Hear! That firework’s for you

and a happy, Happy New Year!

Cooper Canyon

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this stream

knows everything i don’t

it flows — i listen