I’ve tried to tell you
But you won’t listen,
That’s the way you are,
You say what you want to say
And nobody else’s opinion matters.
I see your face shut down,
How hard you become when
You close your heart and
Block out all the sunlight,
Hanging on to the illusion of control.
I’m getting tired of this pathetic
Behavior, there’s more to life
Than trying to get along with
Someone who doesn’t know
How to be anything but difficult.
He rhapsodizes, besotted by lust
She beams, rapt by lyrics and rhymes
Of baby, sugar, sweetie and honey
Now cascading at your feet, eager to love
Then without a fuss, you’ve had your fill
Your hunger is quenched before hers stirred
If this was church, she only heard grace
And it was not even chanted in fellowship
If this was love, it’s premature
It’s like that phrase “stillborn babe”
For even the day, step ladders in fours
Morn to noon and even to night
And daily food permits to nourish
At breakfast, lunch and dinner at will
Yet you attacked the appetizer with so much ado
Ditched the main course like a sorry sight
Leaving no care for tidbits of delicious deserts
See now she reeks like “leftover”
Pinioning and pouting in the dark
The fall of America
Didn’t happen because
Of outside forces
It happened because we forgot
What democracy means
We stood by and watched
As religious zealots
Worked tirelessly to take away
Our fellow citizen’s rights
Denying them equality
We watched as gun worshipers
Redefined the constitution
And sold us the falsehood
That we should all be
Very afraid and violent
Too many of us believed the false narrative
That government is the problem
Rather than a reflection
Of who we are
An institution that can help people
Too many of us watched and listened to
Propaganda pretending to be news
Telling us to be afraid of each other
Supporting the creeping threat
Of authoritarianism
Too many of us bought the lie
That money is everything
And corporations would
Fill the holes
Making all our problems go away
Too many of us believed patriotism
Was waving the flag
While hating immigrants
And anyone who
Wanted equal rights
Too many of us stopped caring for each other
Labeling people who didn’t
Agree with our aggressive/regressive
Positions the enemy
Spitting on people who believe in love
We destroyed ourselves
By letting the people who
Least care about our country
Run everything
For their own gain
If you knew where I’ve been
I bet you would turn away,
Avert your eyes, move
Imperceptibly farther away,
So unpleasant is my story.
I’d like to share it with you
But I know you can’t handle it,
Just like most things. I guess
I’ll just continue pretending
That we’re a couple and
Dream of a time when I have
Someone in my life who
Actually cares.
She sits at her desk, refreshing the page.
Over and over again.
Trying to gather information.
From the empty pages.
The black and empty void,
The terror in her heart,
The anxiety in her stomach,
The fog in her brain.
She knows she is torturing herself.
But she sits at her desk, looking at the flickering pixels.
Who is she.
Why her.
What’s so special.
Her heart skips a beat.
Her brain cringes.
Her stomach churns.
It is all there.
The evidence of the affair.
The evidence of her existence.
That night the light was slow
A faint glimmer before a brighter burn.
The singed green shade twisting
in the faint breeze mouthed
through half open windows.
I’d got up, too hot to sleep,
too tired really, for those ends
of things that tangle a mind’s
late thoughts
when a moth traced the vagueness
at the corners of the room.
Its confusion crashing at the walls,
the brightness its beacon,
and then its silhouette inside the stretched
satin shade seemed muffled
and drawn large as those paper puppets
in shadow theatres of old preconfiguring
its own demise and fizzed throes
of death as staged and restaged tragedies.
Then the stench of absence and heat
was all; a universe swallowed whole.
Shutting the light off, I stumble to the stairs
that fall into the dark, wheeling.
Yes, every poet
has those days
when they feel
their words
aren’t worth the paper
they’re penned on.
No, that is not
a comfort
to realize
when it’s one of
those days.
Yes, there is a solution
that can be found
by writing
a good one.
No, this isn’t it,
but maybe
it’ll look better
come tomorrow.
More at https://17numa.wordpress.com/.