7.20.2008

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Life in a cocoon, never knowing
if it'll ever bother hatching.
Maybe I'll run out of authors to read.
Maybe it'll all just write itself.
Maybe I'll finish selling my soul
for a house with a wife and two-point-five kids.

Wasting away days at a time
lying in bed with books like it'll change anything.
Bacon with every breakfast, chocolate three times a day;
I can practically feel the weight packing on.
My muscles atrophy when all I exercise is the mind
and fingers, I gave up on the push-ups awhile back.
I don't even drink alone in my room anymore
blasting old hits to hack away at the night
as the words come tumbling out of tumblers
at the risk of losing a few more fans.
Haven't written a song in months, my guitar
is more a tool than a paintbrush these days.
I'm forgetting how to celebrate life on my small scale.
It's frightening.

I'm down to a quarter-tank of gas
and have to drive an hour to work tomorrow.
Someone else would've gone out to fill up tonight
but not me; I'm already showered and in my underwear
back and forth between books I wish I wrote
and toying with things I wish I had the balls to write
for real, not just ramble about in lines neatly packaged
to win me a few more frienemies.
The pat on the back never comes anyway, not even
an offer to go out for a cold beer.
(I'd turn it down anyway, the antisocial
ogre of a hypocrite that I am.)
Even my rabbit avoids me when I let her out lately.

A squirrel chewed through a screen downstairs
for the second time in a month
and ate some of my roommate's food
and there's nothing we can do about it
but keep the kitchen windows closed
despite the stifling heat.
Last night someone plowed into our mailbox
dragging it sixty feet to the stop sign
where they must have turned left
according to the skid marks on the pavement.
The onslaught never ceases around here.
No rest for the weary. Or the wicked.
I'm too tired to remember, it's one
of those phrases I use interchangeably
not caring to bother knowing the truth.

And what an arrogant word that is.
There is none.
It's what you make it.

But still, it's no wonder I rush to get back
when I'm done feigning social;
back to this air-conditioned room
with two fans going
trying to keep from sweating it out
if it hasn't been lost already.
Somewhere inside me is an honest man
dying to come off his cross
and martyr himself for something bigger
than his own selfish need to feel martyred.
Do you know how much it's cost me?
Do you know how sorry I am now?

I want to apologize to every person
I've ever hurt, but don't want to cause more pain
by waltzing back into their lives
with a white flag and a fistful of daisies.

Besides, most of them would rather have me
push them up from a shallow grave somewhere.

Lights out. I'm tapped.

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