Exhaust

In a yearbook, how you’ve changed. darkness clouds, as friends evade.

Protect the view, back of the room
no one remembers your name,
or who you were, or who you are (phantom limb hangs on)
Perception never felt so insincere.

You’re so helpless and faceless,
alone in the crowd, fade away,
fade until… there’s only fumes.

Inside my silence, of the lifeless few. Sunshine is so overrated.
They move faster than you
all the lost, forgotten memories.
Escape the light, embrace it,
chasing that first high.
Perception never felt so insincere.

You’re so helpless and faceless,
alone in the crowd, fade away,
fade until… there’s only fumes.

Wolves

Soaking the soulless gouls of the unknown,
thrown to the wolves to pick their bones.
Doorways close, I find myself lost,
estranged on this road.
Howls loom, embers quiet the coals.
Hoping I last one day more.
Living out the life I’ve spent
so many days fighting for.

Division

The clouds briefly part,
only to come back together.
Those fallen,
picked up, brethren.
Breathe new reality
into our momentary
light.

Days Ahead

Someone hand me a quart of blood,
my heart, drained of all its love.
Sweet of you, painting clouds
where there are none. Or sun.
Or whimsical moments when this
first had begun. Beautiful days.
Ahead, uncertainty. Dismay.
I feel you course back in my veins.
Knowing we’ll be ok.

painting: Artist
Michal Madison

City Blues

Daydreams.
Yesterdays.
The dorm. 1st day.
You told me you were proud.
On your own. Stay safe.
Don’t get caught in the moment.
And don’t be afraid.

Yet I cried when you left here, so scared.
I wanted to stand tall and proud,
felt so small in this new town.
Huge city. Brotherly love.
Alone for the first time.
I walked outside, said hello to those walking by, shifting eyes, clutching purses and bags.
Walked into a Wawa.
Said to myself, “I’ve arrived”.

I had so much to discover.
So much to learn.
How I miss you, my brother
the selfless love you shared.

Kid

I want to be a kid again,
not a Toys r Us kid, they’re all gone,
or bicycle Warped tour kid,
that old thing’s rusting in the lawn.
Nothing special, just snow on the tongue when what little snow comes.
I’ll be waiting next year, enduring the fraught summer sun.
Masked strangers masquerading as neighbors.

Always did like the fall.
Leaves falling, distance growing small.
The divide between us all.

You remember.
So do I.

Navigate

Crazed new world, what’d you do to my routine?
Dull, nerve-tingling isolation, every feeling in-between.
Hungry for food I can make by myself
craving fellow humans to eat with someone else.
Maps are broken, doldrums frozen,
inept fools taken aback by lazy days stolen.

Renew

When this new day sun yields a parched sky, with clouds divide, unlike people.

Our souls, stretched into finite daylight, stowed away, peaceful once,

but not today.

Challenge the indifference of the outside world,

value, entranced by wonder

frowned, unfurled brow of the forlorn.

This new view, once corrosive and contorted, banal and distorted

now renewed.

Set another place at the table,

we’ve been waiting for you.

Hideout

I see the worker ants flee the farm,

where you existed to live like everyone.

Spilling into the streets, people I’ve never seen,
hiding out, my neighbors for years,

took the world to fall on its knees,

to bring you here.

Doom with a View

This lovely afternoon, impersonating doom,
grating conscious, into a wave pool with plenty of room
Pedestrians line up en masse, gyrating hips and shimmering glass.
Onlookers slack grins, seldom seen by foolhardy men.
Watch the crowd hurl stones, fragmenting bone, until the virus repels into the night.
No place left to go.