Floating

I feel so isolated and
alone and cold.
And shivering on a couch
tonight while she's away
does not seem okay.
It does not feel good,
and now that my fever's broke,
so I am, and yet stuck
I just want someone to call me up
and say, "Matt, let's chill
tonight. Let's."
You see, oh me, I'm not brave.
I'm not.
I'm not brave, no, I'm not.
I'll be shivering, holding out my phone,
on the couch while my baby sleeps,
and my lady is away.
See, I can't leave.
I can't.
I have to just be
there, but you can be there, but you..
but I'm afraid to be a burden, and
I'm just so not brave.
I live in an ocean of self-pity,
where God finds me floating,
and with the soft strings of a guitar
bids me walk up on the water
and not drown.

And yet I still feel.

Talking to Myself

My hand aches and my fingers are covered with ink. I don't really know how it gets there being that I use ballpoint pen and not quills or fountain pens or some such nonsense. But the inside of right ring finger and forefinger are dotted with black smears, as is that flap of skin between thumb and fingers. How does that happen? I guess it doesn't really matter; suffice to say it did, and now I have a hand that strangely reminds me of a dalmatian. That reminds me that I need to get some more real sun. This fluorescent light doesn't do much for the complexion, but it's so cold outside, and it's so difficult to take the top off the Jeep all by myself. Not that I would take it off now. The max temperature today is below my limit of 70 degrees, and I have no plan to catch cold. My fingers are always so cold these days anyway, and they are so covered with ink.

Get your pen.
Write again.

-*/

That way you whisper
Biting your tongue and looking
over your shoulder for
ever longing for a sunrise
on the west horizon,
well, don't hold your breath
or do and soon, baby, soon
we'll be through, and you
will be somewhere new
somewhere really freaking different, too.
hope for new experience
and you chase the wind,
and you are meaningless
like everything.

Snail

As the spiral downs the last snail in twisting turns,
his slimy words slick the floor, and slipping,
she sees what had become a mess of missed steps,
missed suggestions she leave and be,
something, anything besides his side,
his lies, cheats and steals, his bride, his soon-to-be
corpse,
sliding through the salt and shriveling there
so quickly dehydrating like some
siphoned fuel tank, so now the fire's out,
soaked in the truth of what he was, a snail,
slick words a pathway of pain and depravity, spiraling away
as she steps forward for once and God, it feels like
Life.

Like Flies To...

Maybe one morning it'll be you on the wrong side of the bed,
your memories a mutinee determined to flee from your head,
your stomach an ocean of storms, bubbling up from below,
and your ship's sunk, yeah, your ship is sitting on the ocean floor,

maybe one day, baby, your choices won't be yes or no,
and in the gray, you'll walk through places you swore you'd never go,
you'll mess up and you'll be judged by those thousand eyed
religious type flies that always flock to the waste of life,

flock to the refuse, like you do

Maybe this morning it'll be you with outstretched arms,
Eating dinner with those this falling world has charmed,
Gnawing away at the pain that so frequently enslaves
And fakes us out with false promises that hide big waves,

maybe one day, baby, we'll be intertwined in our wedding bed,
Finally realizing that love is not just some four letter word we said,
but something we're so undeserving of, and we'll be thankful too,
because while we were covered in the waste of this life, You

flock to the refuse, like You do

And if we make mistakes, you're there,
and I don't care, too much, oh yes, I suck
But if I'm going to be in love,
I gotta get out of this funk,

And when people fall around us,
instead of pointing like a fly,
we'll try to help them rise,
we'll try to help them rise
we'll try
we'll try
we'll try to help them be alive.