For Closure

Closure-seeker in a darkened room
Stares at a blank page
Willing it full
Wishing like nothing else to open the box
And himself understand
Hoping that words will somehow find him
Without them, he is shapeless
The push to close this door for good
The pull to keep it open forever
Still no words
There is no order where nothing is certain
There is no certainty where no order lies
Why do these artifacts clutter this room?
They mean nothing
They mean everything
Where is the sense in wondering?
Time will tell all
Time's lips are sealed
Still no words
Closure-seeker in a darkened room
One page is filled
Nothing's been said

Worth and Consequence

Texturized
The thought of you
Coarse as the tread
Of the soles
Of the shoes
That steer me away
Mesmerized
The fog as it rests
Slumbering breaths
Tracing pavement
Tracing the runway
Taking off
In numbness
In shakes
In haste
In a rage
In difference
Stopping only in spirit
To turn
To face you
Your face
Swaddled by shadow
Cradled in fog
Eyes welling
Legs refusing
To budge
To follow
To let go
The static
Don't move
The further I stray
The nearer I draw
The quieter you become
Voices long gone
From the air
From my being
Your hands
Neatly by your sides
Realized
Each step away
Is also a step down
The fog grows thicker
Meaner
Darker
Pulls enmity over my eyes
Spins me savagely
Rearranges concrete knowledge
And I strike every
Single
Edifice
Disoriented
On my expedition
Around this circled course

Imagination

Regard the utopian landscape of reverie
Where plans are upheld
The hearth is a sanctuary
Repression, an archaic nonoccurrence
Fill boundless oceans
With the wine of desire
Temperance, removed from the manifest
Scene by striking scene
Page by pregnant page
Revel in the neon lights of newfound élan
For the unhindered gears
Of this melodious lucidity
Know no seconds, hours, days, or years

Narcissistic

I am the two-faced disappointment
Lurking in the corners of your mind

I am the independent excuse
Stabbing you through the heart from behind

I feel the rain when others feel hands
As a lover unafraid of pain

I feel scattered and biased and rash
As though my screaming was all in vain

I think in straight lines of black and grey
That by no miracle bleed colour

I think of ways to hide lack of thought
Like an unused knife getting duller

I believe in peace love and knowledge
Gracing everyone's life but my own

I believe what I convince myself
Rejecting and insulting false thrones

I play with chance like some play with decks
Grinning wide when I pull the fool card

I play not on words I play with them
Like best friends on a hateful schoolyard

My Name

I’ve shown
Reluctance to walk around this circle I’ve been circling
I’ve known
There was something wrong with me but didn’t want to let it in
And you think
There might be an answer to the question that I represent

I’ve found
I can’t stand the things most down-to-earthen people usually love
I’ve bound
Myself to nothing but the wind and rain and thunderclouds above
And you think
The allure of my surroundings could possibly serve to be enough

I stop dead in my tracks sometimes
And look up to the sky
Try to let all my guilt unwind
And then walk on by
I wish my days could be rehearsed
Although I’m used to surprise
I’d love a life lived in reverse
Without the elegant lies

Don’t hate me as much as I do
Though reasons to cry out beside you
I’m not even sure you really know my name
I don’t even know my name

I’ve felt
Like everything I say is a substitute for important things
I’ve dealt
With unrequited friendship love and undeserved offerings
And you think
A stupid little clothes iron can attempt to work out all the kinks

I’ve spent
Sufficient time mis-analyzing every other challenge I face
I’ve lent
Out too much information bout myself to even try to retrace
And you think
That guilt’s some kind of antidote for knowing my place

I stop dead in my tracks sometimes
And look up to the sky
Try to let all my guilt unwind
And then walk on by
I wish my days could be rehearsed
Although I’m used to surprise
I’d love a life lived in reverse
Without the elegant lies

Don’t hate me as much as I do
Though reasons to cry out beside you
I’m not even sure you really know my name
I don’t even know my name

Happy Place

I’m in a small, square room. It is many things, but foremost, it is quiet. No one is here but me. And I’m not speaking. I breathe slowly and deeply and with purpose. I sit on the warm, sturdy floor at the center of this room. It is a wood floor. Oak. Nearly flawless in grain. Smooth. Level. I am grounded on this floor. The room has a window. Big enough to welcome the sunlight, it faces the world with shimmering clarity. Open ever so slightly, it lets in a delicate breeze and nothing else. I face this window and grin faintly. Opposite the window is a door. It is closed and locked, but the key rests in the keyhole. The walls of this room are white. They know me, but do not talk. I don’t mind. I close my eyes every so often but through closed lids, I still see this room. I live here. This is my domain. I live here.

Empty Wishes

Sometimes, I forget how to think. Like no amount of effort yields discernible thought. I can sit and will myself to make sense, but I generally don’t comply with such orders. I wish I could be organized. That is to say it would be fantastic to have a mind which operates more like a library than a casino. I’m surprised I end sentences with periods instead of letting my words flow chaotically into one another. Some things I say are not worth saying at all, but my filter doesn’t work. I wish I could erase verbal sentences - make corrections with white out instead of reiterating what I say hoping it will make sense if it’s repeated well enough. I wish my judgement worked like that, too - not on the basis of regrets and changing the past, but having the presence of mind to correct mistakes as they happen. But I seldom can buckle down to call these things to mind, let alone put them into practice. I wish knowledge was indeed power. But power is money and money is fortune and fortune is luck - luck that I don’t have. I guess power ain’t my thing. I wish I could stop sitting around making empty wishes and just get things done, but alas, that’s just a wish as well...