Crossroads

North is the land of memory.
All mistakes and stupidity.
The bright fantasies of inexperienced youth.
That time when your cock leads you around by your balls
and Sex, drugs and rock 'n roll are the law of the land.
Oh what a time we had!

South is the land of responsibility.
Everyone does exactly what they're supposed to
And live revolves around tiny boxes.
Tiny boxes to live in.
Tiny boxes to stare at.
Numb and believing they exist outside their tiny boxes.

To the East is the village of family.
Watch how they hide from each other,
Even while embracing affectionately.
Where the promise of 'happily ever after' hangs in the air
Like a carrot before a mule.
Everything anyone could need; just out of reach.

Westward the sun sets,
Its bright rays stabbing the eyes
A reminder that even in beauty there is pain.
A place where living as one was meant to be
Permeates the air with the discovery of the unknown
Explored by those who understand the limitless potential of the mind

So here I stand at the crossroads
Looking back at every trodden path
I wonder how it's possible that every turn was wrong?
The answer to this question refuses to show itself
It's so busy contemplating it's own self-righteousness
That nothing else matters

Have you ever rebuilt yourself from the ground up?
Splintering the past that shaped you
Into the dagger plunged into your own chest
All the while knowing that this moment is the moment
The one you've been rushing toward your whole life
With no way to stop it?

The right words always come too late
So I learned to cry in six languages
Just to make sure that every time I opened my eyes
I could see raindrops on the window of the world
A beautiful storm.
Perfect soliloquy.

I thought I was looking for death
But it turns out I was looking for love.

Clouds

I was driving to work today and there were these clouds. Haunting, dark clouds. They were menacing but not angry. These were clouds that had seem some shit and now carried dark gray/black bruises under their eyes and the tears of their memories dripped slowly onto my windshield. These clouds roared in pain and shook with sobs that rattled the ground below me. These clouds knew the pain that only comes from putting yourself out there, hoping to find the answer to a question you can't even ask; and they knew the crushing disappointment when the answer that comes isn't what you expected at all. These clouds know that change is coming. These clouds are ready for the death of winter that comes before the rebirth of spring.

And I want to know if that's how it works. Do we experience life altering, destructive and traumatic change as an explosion of growth in the same way we were born from pain and came into the world screaming? How do we deal with that change? Do we wring ourselves to the core and beat ourselves bloody trying to understand our own pain? What we see in nature is the explosion of a storm followed by a cleansing and a rebirth where the cycle just repeats itself. Is that how forgiveness works? Is that how I can forgive myself?

Schedule

It's a new week. A Sunday, a new beginning. A day to wake up with the sun, stretch my arms and rip the curtains off the wall with eagerness to face this day! You lay next to me, chest rising and falling in a peaceful sleep. And in that moment its easy to forget that even in paradise, the sun sets.

Monday comes with the shock of the alarms ringing in my head. Responsibility crashes around me and I open my eyes, still tired and trying to do the math of how many hours, minutes and seconds until I can sleep again. Until the world fades again and the hurting stops and I can float away into the ether of a blessedly dreamless void.

Tuesday breaks through; a smack to the face with none of the comfort of an accompanying splash of water. Another day, another dollar; as the saying goes. But I'm already running on fumes and there's nothing you can buy for a dollar these days. Not even a 20 minute phone call, much less the motivation to rise above the muck where I swim with the other "dregs." Oh darling, I wish you were here.

Wednesday and I'm halfway out of the dark. I'm already thinking about you and I have to believe that what I'm thinking is the reason that it's called "Hump" day. I can't focus on anything but the memory of when you'd bend me at the waist, pull me back slowly, fuck me hard and whisper softly into my neck that I'm yours. I want to give you the air I breathe and I'm caught up in the pleasure of the pain,  because even if it's moving too fast, baby, we should take it too far.

Thursday I dreamed that we were together and you wanted me as much as I want you. I held you in my arms and made you safe. You thanked me with a kiss and as the fireworks burst behind my eyes I thought to myself, "why does my tongue feel so damn safe inside of your mouth?" And I fall again.

Friday I sat under the stars thinking about you and wondering if maybe, just maybe you were thinking about me too. Only to see the answer in the light of the moon. You're like perfection, some kind of holiday, you got me thinking that we could run away. Into your vision of the future, through the looking glass you held in front of our faces. The shimmering reflection of what we could be.

Saturday I woke up wanting to kiss you. I crave your touch making me feel like I'm being electrocuted. I crave your lust-filled eyes fixed on me as the only being worth conquering in this universe. I want to taste you again, like a secret or a sin. I think about pressing my lips against yours; fusing our bodies together. Each of us desperately searching for something the other doesn't know is inside them. Thousands of years old, too old to be captured in poems. Too old to be loved by everyone; but loved deeply by a chosen few. 

It's a new week. A Sunday, a new beginning. You lay next to me, chest rising and falling in a peaceful sleep. Looking at you, I realize, you're the perfect example of falling for someone's soul before their skin. Because as beautiful as you are through all the days; I didn't truly love you until I'd memorized the sound of your laugh and swam in the blue of your eyes.

Meditation of the Bull

All I see is red
Gouts of blood on tips of horns
You're beautiful

The sun on my skin
Like being wrapped up in safe love
It feels like heaven

All I see is red
Gouts of blood on tips of horns
You're beautiful

For Those Who Are Still Tirelessly Pursuing Happiness

Happiness is an elusive cunt.

The carrot dangling in front of your face keeping you hauling these bags forward. Always pursuing happiness, have you even thought of what you'd do if you caught it? Have you considered that maybe you can't catch it with your arms so full of luggage?

Have you considered just being happy instead of chasing happy?

What a bitch smack those words are. The people who say things like that, they don't understand. They think it's as simple as just picking up your luggage and taking off. They're even glad to tell you, happiness went off in that direction. Wait, you dropped a bag. It says "depression" on it. It's heavy and clearly high quality, and it looks so good on you.

Do you think they have it in my size?

The luggage is heavy. It didn't start that way did it? The first bag was easy; I mean you weren't carrying anything. So you picked it up and you started walking; a nice walk, with plenty of people all carrying their own bags. After a while when your arm was tired you decided to look inside.

Remember what that felt like? First the feeling of utter relief when you set that bag down; the pins and needles as the circulation started massaging the numbness back to life. Remember how terrifying it was to reach in and pull the second bag out? When you started carrying both of them it still wasn't that bad. Sure, they were heavier but nothing you couldn't handle. Until the two bags turned into four; which turned into eight which turned into ... tell me, how fast did your arms get numb this time?

Maybe you should take up juggling. Everything might not be so heavy and cumbersome if you just keep it all in the air; and you might be able to reach out and grab happiness with your free hand at just the right time. After all, you've only got two hands. Just be careful looking ahead, you might trip over now. Maybe a forklift.

Do you think happiness has a forklift?

This goes on forever. The luggage just gets bigger and heavier while you fall further further behind happiness and you realize you don't have the right to, only the right to pursue happiness. No, this this problem goes much deeper than anything you could have seen or could have controlled. And no one can tell you where happiness really is. But I can tell you what I've heard:

1. I've heard happiness in laughing with a toddler about something nonsensical.
2. I've heard happiness in the raindrops hitting the roof of a covered porch warmed with hot coffee.
3. I've heard happiness in the beat of the drums around a fire of dancers.
4. I've heard happiness in the music of lights that shine from my fingertips.
5. I've heard happiness in a lover's voice wishing me good morning after a wonderful, sleepless night.
6. I've heard happiness in dark at midnight.
7. I've heard happiness in the first light of dawn.
8. I've heard happiness in the company of the friends who erase the concept of "inappropriate."

I've never caught happiness. Not once. I've seen it quite a few times and it's beautiful; and I can tell you that happiness isn't carrying anything. Happiness is always just a step ahead because maybe happiness knows something that I don't; because if happiness is traveling without baggage, what do you suppose happiness is chasing?  The only way to find out is to drop your baggage, speed up and grab it.

Legacy

Here we are at last
The rest of the story
I never wanted to write
The chapters have come and gone
I needed you....
I missed you....
I don't like you....
I don't want to be you....
How many times have I said it
I.
Don't.
Want.
To.
Be.
You.
Somehow I've never escaped your hegemony
And it is true that it's your face I see when I look in the mirror
Here's the pause
Where everything stops
And I try so hard
Just to see things for one second like you
To find peace in the legacy you've left me
For the first time I finally do understand
Though it's nothing about you
But I know what it is like
To return from a war in peacetime
Wakened cold and sweaty
Beaten bruised and bloody
With no enemies left to fight
Nothing to fill the gaping hole left by your patrimony
Only now at the end
Can I fathom the truth
This absence is a kindness
Whether your absence from the thing called 'Father'
Or mine from the thing called 'Son'
And so here we are at last
The rest of the story I never wanted to write
In which our hero
Will erase borders
Engaging in diplomacy
Not out of compassion
Nor from affection
This deed is born from necessity
A need to end a war that's raged for decades
Hard fought and well won
Darkness falls when what you've given
Returns to you
And I am born anew
No more words
No more verse
No more pain and
No more nights wakened cold and sweaty
This absence is a kindness
For one cannot exist while the other lives
And I understand only what God must have felt
As I kill your first born son
To wash away the sins of the father

Musings of the Mad Volume I: Every Stitch Tells a Story

Readers of the mad rejoice! The first collection of Musings from your favorite madman is now available in print! Every Stitch Tells a Story collects poems from the page as well as new, never before published material to round out your collection. Special advance copies for readers of this page are available through direct order from the publisher, just click on the image below.