A Dark Night

Opposite poles repel
Not attract
Yet my lack of substance
Leaves me without any sense of
Desire or disgust
Just a mere musing
...Am I empty...?
...Is there any love...
...To be had...
... By me...?

This is life
In all its pragmatism
Dis-ease
Melancholy
As she tries to pull me
Down to earth
Reminding me
To pay the bills
Go to the dentist
Go to work
Save for retirement
Yet still, I am lost in the stars
Only...
... They're dimmer now
Somehow

She says it's because
I'm truly alone
And merely faking
An open heart
Do I desire
A life of plenty?
A life of one?
A life of solitude?
Do I choose freely?
Or is it just that
Like the stars
My options have dimmed?

Looking outside
Upon the snow globe world
The pragmatism of life
Piercing my very core
And I wish it had never existed
For me
At all

Sitting On Your Bed When You're Not Home

Her dazzling the piano keys
Sometimes turns to pounding
In an outburst of emotion
And I feel empty and shallow
Just to have those emotions
Flutter through my ears
On their way into the universe
Each time I hear her, I want to be her
The way she finds a way to voice every thought
Every emotion
In a charming and relateable way
I want to do that
I want to be her
For you

Two nights ago
You asked me where I've gone
What's going on
And why I don't say much of anything
Anymore
I bit my lip and looked at the streetlight
Scrounging within my soul
To grasp my truth

You told me last night
You felt stagnant
I didn't speak then either
Because I lost my breath
Is it me that leaves you feeling
Like still water with algae
Pooling around the edges
Turning the clear blue
Into green ooze?
So I put my arm around you instead
Praying my touch could convey
My fears and my deepest feeling

... I don't want to lose you...

Boxing is 90% Mental and 10% Physical... Usually...

A yearning, a desire
Welling up from my core
So that even though we are relaxing on your bed
Spending a Sunday as Sundays should be spent
I cannot sit still
From the moment I awoke this morning
(beside you, as you slumbered)
My body was aflutter
Driven by the need to do something
What is that something?
Unnameable
Though I cannot rest until
It has been satisfied

So here I sit
The only thing betraying a disquieted mind
Is a disquieted body
My jittery limbs
Speaking the words
I'll not yet give voice to
Because though I am driven
To speak my truth
I'm not prepared
To hammer it down
Donning the proverbial
Boxing gloves

Procrastination

Work?
Shirk.

Sometimes the Stranger

Sitting across from
The stranger
Is easy
Sitting, talking
Ever so sly
Avoiding the details
Dodging the questions
Creates a mysterious air
And a hint of a challenge
All leading you to think
That you've fallen in love
With me
My cheshire cat smile
I remain unknown
And I am comfortable
In my cloak basking in your smile...

Things change
The passage of time
And you are not the stranger anymore
And inevitably my cloak must come off
Because you're not smiling anymore
Naked, my soul is bared
And I am so very vulnerable
No air of mystery
No longer
Do you think you love me
And I find myself yearning
To be the stranger
Once more

The Injustice of a Toxic Love

Ten years and countless heartaches later
His presence still lingers
Like a ghost in the armchair in the dusty dark corner
Or like the eyes in the portrait
Seemingly following you
Wherever you go
One last gift
Toxic and eroding
The very part of you that
You were sure he stole years earlier
Things go wrong
Things are always hard
And now, a new roadblock
My heart aches for you, my dear
Through phone calls
something's wrong
And biopsies
Love shouldn't hurt
Love shouldn't ever do this
But this, we know now
Was never, ever love
Ten years and countless heartaches later
He's still inside you
In more ways than one

4 am

Dismayed, disillusioned and appalled
The clock strikes 4
And the mad woman emerges
CUCKOO CUCKOO
The slow melody from the stereo
Begins to skip and break
Not unlike the life we share
Frustration and heartbreak grab my glass
And whip the stagnant whiskey against the wall
The stream trails down
To form an inlet in the corner
Where I huddled many a night
As I bartered my sanity to keep on loving you
The scenes play over and over
Like a horror movie I can't shut off
And a voice in my head
That sounds oh so much like you
Taunts me incessantly for compromising myself
Again and again
Just to keep you around
Headlights from a car driving in the world outside
Cast shadows on the wall that continue dancing
Long after the revving engine can no longer be heard
You know something funny? The only tale sicker than our epic is
Oedipus Rex. But he was fated- what's your excuse?
I try to imagine what the unknown sensation
Of you holding me would feel like
As I try to convince myself that one of the voices
Is you whispering that you really do love me
Even after everything
Only I can't feel it
The strange numbness has set in
The one that takes me over only when I think of you
(A defense mechanism, no doubt)
The voices cackle

How Much Do I Take For Granted?

Eyes closed and tight lipped
I picture you
Way back when there was a magic fog
(Later to settle as dust
Over the finer things in this room
And this life)
Your eyes stare at my fumbling fingers
As mine are cast to the spider web
In the upper corner
No denying that we don't
See eye to eye
But you'll stroke my knee
And I'll rub your back
And we'll look at each other
By the time I lay down at night
With your arms around me
Your warm breath on my neck
I'll see that fog
Yet again
Promising that tomorrow
I'll dust the room