The Fifth Promise

Promise number one,
that I'll tell you before it happens.
Promise number two,
that I'll call
and schedule an appointment.
An appointment for emotional health,
if one can schedule such a thing.
Promise number three,
that I'll keep you in the loop.
Not to worry,
you'll be in the know
in regards
to my mental degradation.
My steady deterioration
into nothing,
or a perverted and skewed
everything.
Promise number four,
that we'll run away together
with the clothes on our backs
and the money and cigarettes
in our pockets.

The fifth and final promise;
to myself:
that I'll get out.
Out of this rut.
Out of here.
I will live.
I will travel.
I will see,
experience,
taste
and love.
And then,
dear friends,
I will die.

Darkness on the Face of the Deep: Alternate Universes

I want to sleep.
Maybe in my dreams I'll have the strength to weep.
In the beginning there was chaos.
And there is now.
And there will always be
chaos.
Chance and probability-
did these make you take your life?
Divine injustice, playing with dice?
Is there a happier you in an alternate universe?
A happier us?
Happiness?
If only I had a space shuttle faster than the speed of light.
I would travel throughout the abyss
to gather all that the multiverse has to offer of you,
to bring you back to earth.
You must be out there somewhere.
Laughing, singing, playing.
I wish voices could stretch across aeons.

In theory, every possible you I could imagine should exist.
Somewhere.
Am I grasping at straws?

I Don't Know What To Call This One, But It's For You

The city lights dim
and the wind sweeps through the streets
moving dust under our feet.

A man on the lonely corner
plays the saxophone
and I wish you were here.
These times,
they were made for you,
as my friends would say,
Tailor-Made.
We pull out a pack
and everyone reaches for one
but we all have our favourites
and you were ours.
In this world,
but not of it,
you existed.
You stood,
a proclamation of the beauty
that must somehow lie beyond,
far beyond our understanding
or grasp.
Just a bit too far beyond yours.

You gave us hope of this beauty:
it was so much in you.
And this reality is still so far above me.
I can’t understand.

You touched life in us.
(In me)
You made it worth living.
You brought life itself alive.
If only you could have seen.
The animation of your own life
overflowed,
trickled down into lives
beyond your realisation.
The days rejoiced in you
and you in them.
You lit up the world with the warm glow
of a single smile.
You could make anything funny,
you could make anyone laugh,
and you did.

A life too short,
adoration overdue.
And what now?

I’ve been told that
if nothing else,
life is a grand symphony.
We come,
we play
and we fade.
And if this is so
I want you to know
that you played your part beautifully
like no one else ever could.
And the rhythm of your life
and the legacy you began
will play out in the harmonies
you once gracefully introduced
and the melody with which you helped cure
a dying world.

The sun lights up the coming day,
and I feel myself fight
the prospect of a day without you in it.
We fight
the passage of time
which carries us inevitably
away from you.
I cling desperately to the lingering essence
of a world with you
in the mists of smoke,
to little avail.

Maybe I have it all wrong,
and I hope I do,
and maybe time doesn’t matter
and in the ebb and flow of memories
we’ll find peace,
comfort,
even joy
within the suffering.
Joy in the celebration
of a life lived
so fleetingly,
yet so beautifully,
a miracle to us all,
forever changed.

It’s so inadequate.
None of this,
no words
will,
can,
ever express every thought
and every emotion
you inspired
and stirred
in every one of us,
and what they meant,
and what they mean,
and what they will continue to mean.
All I can come back to
is the beauty that is beyond us,
and the grand role that you played
in helping us to see it.

The city lights are lost in the soft touch of the sun,
and the wind sweeps through the streets,
moving dust under our feet.

The Labour of Thought

My thoughts,
they turn back on themselves.

Yesterday this is what you thought,
they tell me.

And now
we're not so sure.

You were wrong,
you were right for the wrong reasons.

You were right
and you can't change your mind now.

How can one thought
have so many different voices?

_____________________________________

Maybe I owe these feelings to spring.
I hate how fickle humans can be.
Are.

I succumb to my own frivolities,
and then despise myself.
And yet before I succumbed
I despised myself
for not succumbing.

Shut up, shut up, shut up!

Trapped in humanity,
I want to be better,
but I do not will it.

And I do not want to will the want.

On What There Is

(Or What There May Be:
Existence and Other Things)

I'd like to return my ticket.
Not most respectfully, however:
(and prepare yourself,
or don't, on second thought,
I quite enjoy the shock factor)
I'd rather spit on it
or shred it to a million pieces
or burn it
right before your eyes.

It has been months since
I shed a tear over anything,
yet now the tears flow easily
for a man I have never met,
for the pain of his family,
for the pain of a friend.

And this gift you call life
is really a weight on one's shoulders
and a shackle to this earth
and I cannot for the life of me
think of a single one who deserves it.

Maybe this is why I self-destruct:
It is the only way I know how
to throw this gift back in your face.

And to all of you with an agenda:
I will simply deny you.
Keep your agenda to yourself,
I will take no part.
I do not want to be saved.
Pitied.
Pursued.
I cannot even say that
I want to be healed.
I will not be wooed
and I will not be won over,
by those of you with agenda.

I laugh easily about my darkness,
this is a warning to you.
Keep your distance.

I am not who you imagine me to be.

Know this:
you are playing with fire.
And perhaps I pride myself on this fact:
that I am something of a pyromaniac.
This I say to myself
as I take yet another from my pocket
and light the flame.

I've wasted so much time
washing clothes
that will be dirtied in days.
It seems an outright denial
of my humanity,
and the simple state of things.
I'm sick of playing your game.
This plan of yours was either ill-conceived
or conceived with this intention.
Either way, I want none of it.

Perhaps all I desire is truth,
but I don't think that I'm strong enough for it.
(For there is no peace to be had,
no comfort, no satisfaction,
only suffering.)

I'm overcome with a nausea from which there is no relief.
I burn with passionate restlessness.
I'm beginning to doubt that there are valid answers.
I don't know that I believe a kiss will suffice.

again

'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.

Alice replied, rather shyly, 'I--I hardly know, sir, just at present--at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'

'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'

'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.'

'I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.

'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely, 'for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

Why.

Really, this is just getting ridiculous..