an hour passes
and i’m still here
waiting on,
fulfilling the room’s purpose;
so at least one of us should be glad,
basking in the glow of fulfillment,
being what we were created to be,
and perhaps that one is me.
perhaps i should be glad
to wait on my betters,
to be at their call,
paying them to be my betters.
but still the anger rises
and the visions of outbursts
pass before my unoccupied mind,
internally, impotently screaming,
waiting for my turn to come.
The world is about to end, Oh My!
at least that is what i’ve been led to believe
from the people on tv,
who of course are right
because they’re on tv.
schools are closed
and workplaces too,
as well as even a drive-through or two,
what is there left to do?
I guess I’ll just watch more doctor who…
i sit here; you sit there
or perhaps we switch.
it matters not to this game we play
in which both recede,
towards the inside,
twiddling our thumbs,
touching our lips,
not speaking because there’s nothing to say
being both together
and so far away.
and i’m glad to see it go;
despite its innate joy,
it was just the end
of a long, hard year,
coming in at too little,
much, much too late.
and now, i’m even happy
to return to work again,
giving up the leisure
as not too large a price
to close out the year
and sing “auld lang syne.”
and such is life
that in the end,
one small fall is all it takes
to metaphorically end a life,
perhaps beyond repair;
while I metaphorically fall
several times a day.
sad eyed
and anxious to explore,
yet trapped in a box
atop the day’s news
and remnants of urine,
this is the life.
i don’t know what to do,
sitting here,
dazeduncertainlyspaced,
eye-lids dropping,
feeling drunk
without having a drink,
light headed,
hoping to pass out soon,
escaping into an unremembered dream,
but nice nonetheless
and over too soon
when i once again awake
to start another long day,
another sixteen hours spent
looking forward to bed.
the last three months
have translated into
three funerals,
making me wonder,
will i go twelve for twelve?
everyone tells me
that I’m justified;
even so, is it worth it?
after all the calls stopped
and after the visits ended,
after i threw you out,
what was left of our love?
what was left of our past?
and now in 2016.76 ways
i’ll interpret that you said
“i forgive you:”
for being a bastard;
for being ingrateful;
for being an ingrateful bastard.
and if i could forgive you too
i would,
but i don’t even have one way
to reach to where you are,
if i only knew where you are.
and i talked
and talked
and talked;
i couldn’t stop,
lest everyone see
how incompetent
i felt myself to be,
covering it over
in misdirection
and subterfuge,
hoping to fool all of you.
but when you scoff
and glory in ignorance,
do you not realize
how stupid you are?
and the moment has arrived
in which the need for sleep
is undeniable,
but still i resist because
the morning alarm will come too soon
and all of this
will start all over again,
and before i know it,
i’ll be right back here
sitting on the couch,
watching tv,
feeling my eye lids grow in mass
as they irresistibly work their way down;
but if i give in,
will the cycle ever end?
head lifted to the sky
accepting cold drops;
suddenly i am awake.
as the clouds blot out the sky
darkness spreads through the drapes
and into my living room,
casting me in shadow
and the wish that
the sun would stop shining
and darkness would expand,
until there is no difference,
between night and day,
between day and night,
and this moment would last.
even if i were on cialis,
which i’m not,
how would i make use
of my newly re-found talent
when we’re each sequestered
in our own porcelain prison,
sitting outside,
side by side,
but so far apart.
i can’t get through to you
and i don’t know if i will;
and for the moment at least,
all i know to do is watch
football late into the night,
and to drink sunkist,
mixed with bad vodka,
because it’s the only option.
red, red wine,
not much is as fine
except perhaps for beer
taking away all of my fear
and i do very much like whiskey,
always giving me the key,
but tonight i’m just fine with the wine,
mostly because it is all mine.
since we last talked
(if yelling is talking),
and i got mad,
and you got mad;
we all got mad,
and in the end
i gave you up
and the ensuing silence said
“you aren’t my father,
and you never were,
and you never will be,
and i never want to see you again.”
and there’s nothing like death
to draw me back,
to bring me back to say
“you gave me some of the best times
of my life, and I don’t know
who I would be without you,
and i love you, despite your fuck-ups;”
the very things that i can’t say,
that i never will say,
as you lie dead
in a morgue
in pueblo,
colorado.
reveling in my unanimous appeal
seemingly accepted by all
for no reason whatsoever,
other than just being myself,
hoping that i won’t be discovered
as the fraud that i might be,
as the fat-kid in school
that everyone likes
but no one really cares about,
except to make fun of,
every now and then,
in a joking, aren’t we still
friends sort of way.
the sieve and the sand 
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