My legs get me to the downtown public hanging
of the stationary light show just fine,
but my heart is heavy. I’m not speaking in metaphors.
I think it might be a serious medical problem.

God is not with me today,
and I don’t even think the concept of such a thing
is going to tell me what to do, when I run out
of different ways to describe the dead-ends
I’ve been accumulating
without ever feeling the wind in my hair.

And yet I’m happy.

I’m not afraid of all those Christmas Past jerks,
mumbling and bumping into each other in the kitchen.
I’m not worried about raising my glass
and having nothing to say about the friends who are gone.

I’ll have something to say.
I’ll have love in my life for at least another ten years
I’ll know exactly what I should have done last week.

I’ll be happy. I just won’t talk about it all the time.
Not that I’m worried about jinxing it. I’ve been handcuffed
to cars that see a game of chicken as a great way to end
an outlaw country song no one thinks is catchy.

I’ve been forced to choose between finishing
the sing-along or bleeding to death.

Bad luck has big hands, anger problems
and a steady, distressing laugh.
It has the eyes of a crow that’s been learning
how to stalk twenty stray thoughts at the same time.

It has a sense that’s greater than the sum of six.

Let it come back. Son-of-a-bitch can break
every chair in the room and sit down in the last one.

I won’t complain. My anxiety,
the mistakes I’m going to keep making,
all of it could be built into one hell of a pinball machine.

Bastard would probably electrocute you every time
you got too close to winning on your first quarter.

Is it a good sign I find that funny?
That I can’t tell the difference between the skylines
of my dreams, and the ones I’ve actually woken up to?

Does that mean I’m getting dull?
Is being happy worth it?

If it’s not
I’ll take my chances,
and make the appropriate changes to my schedule.

And I’m the only one who will probably notice.

05/09/2012

Posted on 05/10/2012
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