the ship that sinks.

 this is the ship that sinks,

taking on water, absorbing the ocean,

brining the boards of our boat,

swallowing the fire of our engine.

a last gasp of steam

fading like last night's last dream.

before long becoming submarine,

departing the surface,

bound for the bottom.

drowning.

or swimming?

clawing a clumsy crawl to oxygen.

gulping sea-sprayed air.

cursing the waves that take breath

with violence clobbering...

...the life from lungs,

but confident the sun will chase the storm.

perseverance.

Anxious

 My anxiety wraps itself around me making decisions that might seem seemly but leave me just constantly questioning everything.

Blood rushes to my extremities and out of my cranium so dumb, I sit silent wanting so badly to run, feeling under the gun, unable to hear and under the weight of a ton.

And before long, before I even know it, anxiety's won.

The psychological impact of all that surrounds me is really overwhelming and I don't know if I can keep up the pace of enduring but changing is a strange thing and disruption is something too much for my brain.

Can I maintain?

While I'm circling the drain?

I can't get out of this greasy stain, but numbness is driving out all the pain.

So that's something.

WHAT IT'S LIKE NOT TO SLEEP

Chaos brain long chains of safety pins holding in
From denim to denim chewed off finger nails and Half-Cabs
Sheep counted to four, or is it five digits
An M for each middle finger and every other finger thumb and toe besides
Threadbare couch and neurons each spark and come apart
Axons and dendrites and zippers and red cushions.

Just. Focus.

Chaos brains and long chains of nonsense written in
Ballots counted, recounted, recycled into schoolbooks
Losses the foundation from which kids learn to...
Lose again? Lose and lose and loose and looser
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you thrill me.

I want to write songs that start off feeling like you woke slowly,
in the middle of the night,
to find the covers have come off you in your dreams.
Then, you become increasingly aware of the cold permeating your bones,
starting with your feet.
You shuffle awkwardly in the dark to get the covers back on without waking your lover.
Finally, you are covered,
albeit with twisted sheets,
and warmth returns and you dream of flying,
of beautiful skies,
of lovemaking,
stiff drinks,
and deep, deep, satisfying breaths.

The dug deep hole is dark.
Black, eating candles with
wisps of cool air coming from
not-God knows where,
every match is cooled
before its flame illuminates
this lived-in cave.


*****

I'm hating.
Waking.
Knowing that I'm chaining
myself to a train that isn't moving.
It just sits rusting on an overpass.
Oh decay.
How. Long. Can. I. Stay. This. Way?

Sun in the Mirror

I can see the reflection of the sun through the door in the South wall of our room that you left open when you went to work.  The mirror in the hallway captures its ambition and shrinks it to the 36 inch by 24 inch cherry-stained frame.  In the translation, all warmth is lost, along with green leaves, chirping birds and dark sunglasses.  All that remains is a yellow ball.  I hold my hand up with pallid tattooed fingers to hide the glare, and even the yellow ambition darkens except where it explodes red out from between my closed fingers, and I hope for dreams.  I know it is a futile dream because around the corner of that Southern door, the day waits also for me.  It sits silently anticipating my ambition will clatter against the cherry-stained frame of my own self-perception reflection: that I am incapable and undeserving of happiness.  So, like the sun in the mirror, I only, but just sort of, exist.

Tendrils
is the kind of word to use
when describing the arms that engulf
me and you:
snaking underneath arms
and over backs
and down sides
and across necks.