This is the remainder of my life,
and I can watch the possibilities
take form, talk about taking flight
but just make the motions with their uneven arms.

I’m screwed before I make the usual comment
that the evening is dressed for the success
of ripping my insides out. I may as well be
good-looking, before I’m a corpse that has to learn
how to walk before he can crawl into bed.

I used to hope for someone to talk to,
when I couldn’t tell one Texas set design from another.
Forever and a day ago was a fine amount of time
to wait to get away from something wonderful
that I had turned against myself.

I used to be creepy but charming,
and then someone kidnapped me,
paid for the operation to keep me looking
and trembling like an old vampire
from one of the old countries.

My limbs always hung in there,
when I courted reality to bend anything and everything
that was right in front of where I was walking.

I could always get a grip. That’s gone now,
but the fever of being stranger than fiction has its moments.
I can crack my head on a streetlight
when I found a playing card on the sidewalk,
and the gorgeous, tattooed gunrunner winks back at me.

If I realize that I don’t know
a single sleeping shape on the mattress,
I can tie my own shoes in no time at all.

That’s when I can even tell the difference between
the lights that tell the subconscious death machines
to stay the hell out of my way,
and the red, green, blue and yellow dots
that used to light up the wars my dreams raged into.

Sometimes those dots are so grand and swift,
I can’t quite hook my thumbs into the waistline
of her panties. I can’t be certain
that I’m just trying to find her in a crowded cafeteria,
and not actually fighting for the remainder of my life.

Those days never used to come along.
They’re just infrequent now.

You win some,
you lose some,
and you decide it counts
if you blow out someone else’s birthday candles.

You vote for the guy who hasn’t shown up yet.

09/17/2012

Posted on 09/17/2012
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