Angrily gazing
12/12 2023
To pace back and forth
Looking at myself angrily
As the streetlight hums low
But I'm in here all alone
And birds sit perched
And I don't dare look away ---
What conversation I need,
They will have to provide.
Even though my words are few
I have many to the one
Who cries into stronger arms.
What music is played:
Those bittersweet notes
That we all pretend to understand.
I've run out of metaphors;
The cats are fighting outside my window;
The bottle of whiskey has run dry;
The sleep fights with my desire to live;
My desire to die has yet to be born;
I take a bite of the apple but the apple bites me;
Somewhere a son is driving home in the dark,
Wondering whatever truth is out there could be worth
Seven empty coffee cups and memories of a vast ocean?
And the road is dark and long.
The crucifix bleeds but I can't sleep,
I only hear the bittersweet hymns
That echo down to the eaves of an ancient hall.
Not that I could hope to understand any of the words,
But I must endure the pretending.