Accidental High School Reunion

Early up, head down,

Same old almost the same.

The temp thing is hard on the biological clock,

and it's hell on the internal compass,

But your eyes are easy on mine.

I knew you, once upon a time,

But now is not the time.

I can't believe I had forgotten,

and I'm half-surprised that I remembered.

Barbarian at the Gate

I admit that it is true that there were times I was prepared,

Unwavering and full of hope, appropriately scared.

Nevertheless, I am grateful to have been many times delayed.

I would not give up my little seat, my waiting at the gate.

When the time comes for me to board and deplane, when I arrive,

When this old barbarian reaches his gate on the other side,

I wonder if I will be ready.

Good Is a Bad Word

Of all the things you could have called me,

There's only one word you could have used

That said weak and wishy-washy,

Utterly un-unique and unbelievably uninteresting,

But at least you put me on to a little linguistic lightening strike:

Everything the word says about me

Is all I can say about the word.

It's Better Than Nothing

It didn't make sense. Not now. Not to you.

The story was just too horrific to be true,

But if it really did happen, it would have been quick.

I suppose that's better than nothing.

The fury clawed its way out of my lungs.

If this had to be real, if there was nothing to be done,

Then I would try to burn everything down with my tongue.

I railed against a world that would bear you away

On the wings of your own demons,

But what I railed against most was me,

The so-called man who might have seen something,

But most certainly did nothing.

I didn't make the healthiest scapegoat, either,

But I guess I was better than no one.

I begged in the short term for time's fruit, understanding.

Not finding it, I wondered what I should be doing,

and agreed, to myself, that this will never happen again,

That there would be no me if there was anyone in need,

That this mistake was the last one I had in me.

There's nothing so deadly as a deal with an angel,

A loan against time that I'd already borrowed,

A desperate, delaying denial of some horrible inevitable,

Which I guess is better than nothing.

At the failure of the futile path that I chose,

My one true talent did itself soon disclose.

Not so good at a little bit of help,

I showed some aplomb for get-the-hell-out,

and I wrote a new set of rules for failure:

Once–try harder, twice–hide.

I suppose it was better than nothing.

So now, on a path ten years in the traveling,

I have achieved at least some measure of understanding.

It never should have happened, but it did.

Death's not half as deadly as living with it.

Dedicated to My Roommate, the Ghost

I am a lover of science, who believes fervently in ghosts

Because for the last ten years of my life, my head has been the host

To a woman whose corporeal life was ended in gunflash,

But has taken this long to die in my mind–and more, for she's not passed.

At first there was the missing, both the laughter and the tears.

Since that ended, I've blamed myself, a hobby lasting years.

I don't content it's all my fault. I didn't take that shot,

But frankly, she's been gone so long, that's all of her I've got,

and if that's all of her I'm holding onto, I can see how that sounds lame,

But if I believe in cause and effect, I must believe in blame.

Why I Write, Part x+219: It's A Helluva Drug (Remixed Drink)

My mind moves,

Bumping gray-matter grooves.

It doesn't ponder; It doesn't prance.

It's in the club, but it doesn't dance.

Sometimes, I slip into something more comfortable,

Intellectually speaking.

Through darkness, across my cavernous cranial cavity,

My mind's eye comes to rest on a ravishing, raven-haired idea,

and I try to strike up a conversation with her, to get to know,

To lay groundwork, to hear and to hold and to hope,

and it turns out she doesn't look good that up-close.

Why I Write, Part x+218: It's a Helluva Drug (Stimulant Mix)

My mind moves, meanders missionlessly,

Motor-mouthing, milling, mucking, making,

Mastering the mundane, mustering mystical metaphors,

Until I get stuck on a word I don't have a word for,

So I start picking and picking and picking and picking

and picking at whichever part of my mind is sticking

Until I the unknown out from under the ubiquitous usual,

Until I get it right.

Until I can chill out.

Until I can cool down.

Until I come down.

Incomplete

I gave myself an incomplete.

I gave myself a long two years

To learn what I could about you,

and I gave myself an F now that they're through.

You told me concealed untruths, unlies

Sharp and unlooked for, verbal, boot-holstered knives,

and I heard them with half-deaf ears,

Playing once cool, twice shy, thrice eager.

My mind, no matter how many times

Heated and quenched in heartbreak's hand

Cannot stand in front of my soft, foolish eyes, and

I still can't smell what you were cooking.

You found my weakness, but were you ever looking?

Blue-Eyed Girl

I took all that attraction I don't have

For a Hollywood world that I can't stand.

I saved, collected, invested in you.

At the time, it seemed the thing to do.

I liked that you smile and laugh, your thirst for fun.

I liked watching you shine in the sun,

Not realizing the polish it takes to shine that way.

Then I woke up. It was a black Tuesday.

I had frittered my investment away.

Somethingorother

The song said “maybe this year will be better than the last,”

and my friends say they hope it's all uphill from here.

I know life isn't cheap, but at least it's steep and fast.

Still, I can't imagine what is better than this.

I can't imagine what I'll do after this.

Somethingorother, I guess.

The Historical Linguist and the High-Functioning Sociopath

They say everybody hurts sometimes,

and I wonder if that's true.

They say “everybody love everybody.”

Once a day, I think of you.

They say that if it's real,

It's like getting hit by lightning.

They say no one wants to be alone,

But it's better for my writing.

I've been told that to be human

Is to always know desire–

Just one more reason to wonder

If I'm secretly a monster.

The Once-Bitten's Argument For Halftime Adjustments, or What's the Matter?

She tells me that she wants me,

and I want to tell her even whores have standards,

But instead I tell her that it's been ten years.

She can't be the woman I foolishly fell for.

It's possible that I'm not even the man she remembers;

It's just hard to tell inside this castle of a stone face.

She tells me that time doesn't matter,

and I want to tell her it's the only thing that matters,

But instead I tell her that if nothing has changed,

Then how could the ending be anything but the same?

She says that none of that matters,

But I want to say it matters to me.

The Other Half of a Bad Night

I'm singing the self-righteous song of recovery,

and I look with the unresting eyes of the penitent,

As I plod through the age old search of the shame-reduced,

To find ways to forgive myself for you,

and I'll always sing the self-righteous song of recovery,

and I'll always plead with those unresting eyes of the penitent,

and I won't stop dragging my feet with the same of it

'Til I've forgiven myself for myself.

The Penitent's Cure for Postmodernism

My life is a tale of progress, albeit halting,

A testament to my flaws and a God well worth exalting

So I find it most opaque, given new years which old surpass,

Why I should feel affection for my self and my times past.

My next step forward is deciphering why it should ever be

That I harbor this nostalgia for old habits bad for me.

Setting Priorities

It seems like when money talks,

Those with less better take a walk.

When money runs the culture,

You're always on the clock.

When setting priorities, some repair

To due dates, or first person there,

Without loyalty, judgment or wisdom,

Though if nothing else, it's fair,

But when I'm with a friend, at a game, in the hall,

and interrupted for somebody's phone call,

Unless it's a family emergency,

How can I help but be appalled?

Memory Games

Mensa recommends a mind-palace for memory games,

But I come home to a mind that looks more like a cave.

It's, to most, uninviting. There's no doorbell–no door.

Staying in means enduring hard, uneven floors.

It's rough, dark, and downhill, more descent than a ride,

and I'm so gutless, even I don't know what's inside.

Girls Girls Girls

There are girls who dance deftly across stage's center.

Others sit in eyes' corners, just waiting to enter.

There are friends I might like to cast in new roles

And betrayers whose grasp emptily, sound depths of my soul,

Go-out girls and stay-in girls, for my glutton and sloth,

Girls like Liberty Poem, made up from whole cloth,

Desirees with desires, from here to earth's end,

But the ones that mean something, they remain now as friends.