Sunday Afternoon (Is This What Dying Feels Like)

poetry

The Sun is warm
as it reveals the world
to those who would discover it

It casts shadows, too;
it creates mirages
when it burns too bright

It blisters skin,
it boils out moistures,
it saps all fight from a man

And I am thankful for its light
And I am fearful of its shadows
And I wonder, is this what dying feels like?

Would that I could find an answer
But only the dead have it
And the dead I know don’t say a word

Shallow and Meaningless

prose

Part 1 – Untitled

On my way to the airport my mother mentions that a Nigerian man will be coming to live with her. His brother, who is named after a day in the week, is constantly texting her.

“No one has ever said such nice things to me” she says, showing me one of his text messages.

The Nigerian is coming to go to college. “It feels nice to be able to change someone’s life” she says. I wonder why it can’t be her life, or my life, or my autistic brother’s life. She’s given up on us, I suppose.

It is a beautiful July Sunday in Southwest Michigan. The sun beats brilliant down upon the I-94 where the animals know to stay the fuck away.

We arrive at Gerald R. Ford Memorial Airport. An interstate hub. I’m going to visit my Grandmother.

I’m flying with with an airline named Allegiant which I am certain is being run by a couple of computers in a call center basement somewhere in India.

As I arrive to my gate I survey the other passengers. I think of the movie Final Destination but decide to fly anyway. I imagine us all getting sucked out of the pressurized cabin into the air. I think they are all looking around thinking the same thing.

Maybe I’m projecting.

They have the passengers split up into sections. I’m in group three, there is no group one or two, some of group four has window seats but they’re seated last.

I am sat next to an attractive young woman. Potentially younger than 18, although, in my 20s, it is hard now for me to call. She has deep dark red hair and is dressed in a black, laced dress. There’s a seat open still and I say “maybe we’ll get an extra seat, that would be nice.”

She says “yeah.”

A young family of four are to sit near us, a mother and three girls. One of the girls fills the window seat. She looks just like my ex-girlfriend’s younger sister, but thinner. Has the same name: Julie. She wears glasses. She, too, is probably under 18, though I still cannot tell.

Their skin is like porcelain. To my right is the smell of fruit, to my left is the smell of lavendar. I sneak glances at them on occasion, but I never say a word. I imagine fucking them both, and how disappointed we would all be about it; myself, each of them, those I love, damn near everybody. I decide it’s best to not say a word for almost the whole trip.

“The landing is the worst part” I finally say, as we begin to descend.

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Nobody Tells You How Long It Takes

poetry

Every now and then it hits me
like a kick in the teeth

The stinging will pass, sure enough
but the ache and soreness eeks on
for hours afterward

then I’ll go a week, let’s say,
and everything will be just as good
as it could be, considering

but then the truth, like a startled mule
will stop suddenly in front of me
and out its hind leg will spring

Luckily my lip never seems to split
nor does anything seem to pop loose

But my jaw has been consistently stiffer,
these days,
and my gums are stinging real bad now,
that’s for sure

Diatonic Fourths

poetry

My fingers struggle to process input
from eyes that struggle to remember
how to interpret dots and marks
in such a way as to associate them
with a letter, and in some cases
a modifier that when read together
make up the pieces of what would
in the modern parlance be called
a ‘universal language’

it sounds awful as I stumble over
notes that don’t go together the way
that I think they should, but really
these intervals are new to me, or
at least they are as an exercise
in movement, but I have been assured
that even as the tones clash and
cluster, and even though my muscles
feel as dumb as they have ever felt,
I will be better off when these
sounds are under my fingers

I am not sure that I believe them
but I will stay in this woodshed
just the same

the ballad of the penguin and the polar bear

poetry

you’ve got the heart
of a bird
that can’t fly
but you want
to be
the mighty bear

you gather your strength
in numbers
sharing your warmth
and empathy

he’s got the heart
and the skin
for the blistering cold
and all alone
though he longs
to share

he sings his sad songs
into the wind
longing for warmth
and empathy

when the world is a giant iceburg
you see what you think you need
floating among
the shards of ice in this vast ocean
the missing puzzle pieces to
a heart that doesn’t bleed

you swim for it
and you find it
but they don’t fit

some foreign things
are foreign
for a reason

some opposites
repel
too hard to touch

you find it’s the things
that make you different
that keep you apart

no matter how you dream

Most Nights Now

poetry

‘let’s not do anything too drastic’
I say to myself most nights now
and instead of venturing forth
into the darkness with a gun
on my hip and cheap whiskey
in my gullet I swaddle myself
in the folds of a blanket that
radiates with memories so warm
they quickly overwhelm me
and as I lay with half-closed eyes
staring at the wall while
a sad old record hums through
the speakers of my stereo
I wonder if perhaps a spot of
hot hooch and some adventure
isn’t actually drastic enough

Pipeline

poetry

Every forty minutes or so
It happens

Liquid starts to swell
Behind the corners of my eyelids
And begins to push outward
Threatening to escape
In front of everyone

I have never been such an avid blinker

But the blinking only partially belays
The sad parts leaking out. Hell,
it doesn’t even really stop the water

And even though this only happens
Every forty minutes,
The water is always bubbling up

Marry Me

poetry

‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you’
I would say, never giving away how coy I was

Those words chosen carefully each time,
always avoiding the one that really matters,
for to invoke it would surely give away
my secret plans

Now I sit alone, and those words which were
chosen with such calculation ring dead and hollow

I worry that I was too late after all
and now this jewel will sit forever,
as it melts a hole in bottom of my dresser drawer

We Are All Playing Soccer

poetry

There is a ball in play
and a ticking timer
somewhere on the sideline

Every single one of us
is winded and panting,
our hands on our knees

We are not struggling
to stay upright, it’s
not quite as bad as that

but our joints ache and
our hearts are thumping
collectively;
every lung is wheezing

Each of us thinks to ourselves
‘I’m way out of my league.
There are younger men than me

‘And healthier, too. Perhaps
I should get off the pitch
and let those young men have a go’

Then the ball goes spinning this way
just outside of your immediacy
so you dash for it, kicking wildly

You do not score a goal on that play
or many other plays, really.
You stumble a lot and you’re tired

But the truth is, even in this
complete state of disarray
there is wholeness on that soccer pitch

The truth is, even as we struggle
to keep our bodies moving and our
hearts beating and our lungs full of air

Even as we miss each shot and
whiff each kick, we are playing,
and you can’t win if you don’t play

I Must Have Been Dead Before Now

poetry

I would spend each night
dreamless, or at least
I did not know my dreams

or if I knew my dreams
they were dark dreams.
They were black ink
that washed across my world

Now I spend each night
dreaming, or at least
I know my dreams

They are wonderful dreams,
too; we are happy and
healthy and smiling

I think that I dream
the rest of the time now, too,
and before I must have been dead

The dead don’t dream so much,
I think, and this waking dream
so often makes me feel
like I’m dying

we run from the easiest answers

poetry

i believe i knew before the dive,
anyway

i knew when i forgot where you were

i mean you know when someone goes
missing

at the bottom of the lake
and at the bottom of everything
you thought you needed to find
and was dead already
with your face,
and your eyes wide,
purple-ish blue
dead long before
you knew it was missing
dead already when
you realized it was gone

so what there is now
left
to hold onto
must endure.

to you, or: the reason man made the gun

poetry

the world is incalculable by any one man
as much as we tried wasting our youth
tossing ideas around like large numbers
on the chalk-board of a mathematician
all threads seem to come screeching to a halt
at some point,
eventually

the one thing, i think
it has been agreed by all
that the best place to drive
your car is in the middle
of the lane

but more than that
the double yellow line must be
treated with respect
and at times,
by rule of the gun

man made the gun to be used when there
is no sense to be had
when it comes down to just you and another
on a dusty plane anywhere at all
and at that moment self-preservation is
the only truth to be had at

this increasingly is how i’ve begun
to see things in general
and i say this to you, now, specifically

sleep with your gun my friend
sleep with your gun and hold it with your heart
sleep with the gun you built yourself
by thinking and feeling every hour of every day
like i know you do
and when nothing makes sense and nothing is upright
when they are saying “no it is six oclock” and your eyes
tell you it is ten
when they are saying “no the grass is green” when you
see it brown
when they are cancer in your blood
when they become you and you become them

pull that fucking trigger
first and keep yourself
alive

this is why man made the gun
for when all else fails
it alone is to be respected
and to whoever holds it
life,
still.