Hope

maybe today I will quit nipping at the soft edges of my belly
maybe today a rain drop will land perfectly on the back of my throat
maybe today I will not throw even one sock into the trash
maybe today I will not scrub my face so brutishly hard
maybe today I will make it to bed at a more usual time
maybe today the CD player for no good reason will decide to work again
maybe today a little thought will land and make me tip over
maybe today I will have the most glorious yawn ever
maybe today my cup of coffee will last a little longer
maybe today I will call my father and ask him something uniquely important
maybe today a random song will play and it will please me
maybe today my feet will take me just a little bit farther
maybe today I will find a lucky penny stuck to the bottom of my shoe
even though there is no such thing as luck
maybe today I will feel as though something great is within reach
only to let it slip off my fingers
there are still clams and Tobasco on my breath from dinner
how great it would be to stand at the massive mouth of the ocean right now
and watch its tide come lumbering home
instead I will sit silently picking at my teeth with a handy green flosser
typing these words onto a screen spattered with spit and clam
words so deliciously dirty that I think I might eat at them once more

Pleased

I thought that it might be of interest to write you
concerning your book. I began it the same as any other -
in my underwear on the bed, sometime after nine.
But as the pages passed the writing deteriorated.
Titles turned to chores and I eventually began
to prematurely skip pages hoping to find a better,
more intriguing entry. Something less elaborate -
tenacious as the lemon pie I ate just before crawling into bed.
I wanted it to bite me back and immediately begin
the nagging process of decay as many other books have done.
Your book did none of that for me. After I finally threw it aside
(somewhere into the dark behind my littered nightstand)
I picked up an old book. Its age created a wonderful sneeze
and for that I was kindly blessed.

Smoking Outside The Pharmacy

An old man stood outside the pharmacy windows
slowly smoking a cigarette in the morning drizzle.
While the rest of the world buckled beneath its responsibilities
he took his time releasing smoke into the nine o'clock air.
But the way he smoked that cigarette was strangely enviable;
how the filter was nestled so close to his interphalangeal web
so that every drag meant that his large dried out hands
cupped the perimeter of his jaw as I often do when
hunting for a memory, as the men on the commercials do
when assessing the closeness of their shave.  And then his hand
finally releasing his skin as if lifted by his breath and sent off to wander.
All of this while drops of rain came to rest on my glasses,
while I marched on beneath the great weight of my own secrets.
I wiped my glasses clean with the edge of my shirt and spent
the rest of the day admiring his ability to let it go.

Repeat

I have not known exactly what to do
it has been this way for years
we have gone through these motions
of explode and then diffuse
but have never really got anywhere
and that is exactly how we got here
a place so familiar that no one wants to look
yet everyone cannot help but remember

Those Days Are Gone

It is not enough to say that everything is okay.
It is not okay. It is not right that I can only be found
as a source of pain and contempt. It is not right
that it should end this way. I remember sitting on the
floor of my old bedroom. I did not own a bed, and you
were there. Sitting next to me. Your big eyes so young
and curious, reassuring me that everything was going to be okay.
Last night, like most nights, I laid awake staring into nothing.
I listened to her breathe but it is not okay. It is not normal
of me to be awake every morning at 2am so sure of my failure.
And you will not walk into my room, standing so small beside me,
telling me that everything will be okay.