APRIL 29

 

 

 

i say let’s let sleeping dogs lie
and just for tonight
let us let dogged lies sleep
i am too young to be this tired of life
i am too alive to be this tired of youth

 

but what can my options be

 

i hate life more than the republicans hate welfare
more than pat robertson publicly hates porn
i hate life more than the summer hates winter
more than the light hates the twilight
more than dc-10s hate gravity

 

and i sit in darkness
trying to seek the slightest justification for my life
and i fail

 

i am nothing but dna gone awry
i am nothing if not nothing loosely disguised as purpose
i am nothing!

 

i am tired of being a slave
to gravity . . .
to hope . . .
to seemingly harmless contemplation

 

tell me that you can love me and leave me
with no pangs
with no consequences
with no temptation to forget that which you cannot . . .
my heart is bigger than god
but that is still too small for you!

 

would you have me believe that decisions matter
and would you have me believe that they don’t
would you have me believe
in you
in benevolence
will the tooth fairy be truth because you assert it
will santa suddenly resurrect childhood expectations
and will i be pure
because you have hope

 

i say coddle me or kill me
swallow me or spit me
eat me or edify me
i have been hungrier than you can imagine
i have been more imaginative than you can ever hunger for

 

yet i find myself accosted by decisions
i find myself confounded by fate
love sometimes demands that we are selflessly selfish
and i am full of self

 

you can recite memorized verse
i can recite ritual . . .
expectation . . .
spoken love . . .
a memory of a touch so soft . . .
a promise spoken in silence . . .
a breath exhaled
from a collapsed lung

 

and i have become inoculated from anything that matters

 

is it possible to buy you back with a kiss
with a stout vocabulary
with something deceptively honest
is the world bigger than it is small
or
am i just smaller than i am big

 

pardon my sharp-tongued paradox
forgive my miscarried faith
forgive me
but do not presume that i will betray or be betrayed
with a kiss
you may gain a piece of silver for my years
but my years cannot be purchased

 

i have been the dark bird who sat upon the rigid arms of the scarecrow
intended to scare me
i have made peace with scarier stuffed figures
and who is expected to change
me or the scarecrow
who is the more correct
the one who eats the corn or the one who protects the corn

 

and who am i to ask such questions

 

tradition exists to protect you from me
that is the way of things

 

i no longer have profound words which detail life’s ambition
i merely have my flesh . . .
my blood . . .
my diseased brain . . .
a rabid pigeon hunting for crumbs in kenmore square

 

and i desire to end this mad homily
but how do i end this
life supplies its own terminus
i cannot make the end from what is not the end
i cannot go where i am not invited

 

i say let the damned be damned
and let me no longer be troubled
i will take my chances among their number
peace was never invented for anyone like me
salvation is for those void of imagination!
i say let the saved be saved and let the damned be damned
just leave me to my own fate

 

i am suddenly concerned with words
vocalized and unspoken
with dreams
considered and concealed
with the full extent of my humanity
i will be what i will be!
no apologies . . .
no regrets . ..
no accommodations . . .

 

life is not a hapless salesman who appears at the front door
offering a once in a lifetime opportunity
life is the helpless stranger we mug in the subway
It is molested . . .
it is murdered . . .
or it is ignored

 

i am tired
love me or leave me!
but do not leave me unloved

 

and i sit in the encroaching morning light
trying to seek the slightest justification for my life
and i fail . . .