He looks at me

And thinks that this hat

Is just part of my outfit

Today.

Really, gaydar should

Say more.  

Tonight.

Tonight I wished,

Am right now,

Wishing.

Wishing for something

Different,

Totally opposing,

That which I have spent

So very many wishes upon

She's the one I thought

I saw

Flying out the window

In the middle of the night

What do you say

When your only love

Has said goodbye 

For the first time

I feel okay

For the first time

Muscles relax,

My mind is okay,

I nearly feel at peace,

Like I've wandered through

A desert,

Finally seeing an oasis.

Persecutor into apostle

A visionary, wandering

With encrusted fish skin

Falling from ocular lids.

Softened but cautious.

Hardened but delicate.

We don't worry

Who is here

And who is not

We love them all

And wish them well

We know what we like

And we're pretty alright

With whatever you may like

Because all we do

Is sit and play music all day

Hit a bowl, drink a beer

Maybe, if we aren't persuaded

Otherwise

Go for a hike

We grow love

Like some grow

Tomatoes, tobacco

Or corn - in pretty

Little rows.  

To her eye

Above me, burying

Threatening to devour

A last tiny expanse of sky

Covering almost completely a

Would have been sunset.

And to her eye

It's not solitude of grey

On this night lacking

Accompaniment,

It is right with shades of blue,

Light wisps of rosy pink,

Dance on fields of dark grey;

Reflections from pavements

Of dim neighborhood streetlights,

And dark hues of deep violet,

Mix within her stare

She spends the rest of time

As the wardrobe covering the

Delicate vulnerable moon.  

Please distract me. 

Do anything,

To keep my thoughts here

Away from the awful places

They seem to love to go

Please distract me,

Make me feel something

Something other than nothing,

Something that may be real

Permit me to breathe again

Distract my gaze

From demons that dance

Around my mind, emblazed

Please distract me,

I've forgotten already

Again to inhale

I'm a prisoner bound to these chains

I don't know how to break

That always come back.

I want to jump. 

I want to jump.

I want to jump.

Leap from the top of a tall enough building

Somewhere downtown.

I want to jump

I want to jump 

I want to jump

Headfirst into a new life,

One where I didn't go to college,

All I do is write,

And I started making my way with it

With opportunities long ago,

Not telling myself not to do what I

Had always intended desired and been

More than apt to do. 

A life where I'm not almost thirty,

Homeless, friendless, family-less,

Where I didn't become dependent on

Coffee at 11,

Booze at 12,

Cigarettes at 13 and

Weed at 14. 

A life where I've got a wife

One that I deeply love,

A wife that reciprocates that back.

Where we have a home with a lovely garden

That I tend to,

With a baby on the way,

Not too much money,

But enough for a happy little home.

With a golden retriever named Sammy,

A big back yard for running.

A life where I'm not crazy,

A life where bridges and parking garages

Don't lure me into their lairs,

A life where I don't whisper

Bits of angry insanity just above

Beneath my breath,

Where self-annihilation

Doesn't guide my every move.

A life that doesn't make me

Question why I'm doing it every day,

Where I can see past today.

Where I'm not just a victim stuck in

The confines of time. 

One where I don't feel like such a

Waste of space and time

A life in which I haven't ruined my lungs

At the age of thirty. 

I want to jump

I want to jump

I want to jump.