To Be Like You

If you're not like the rest, 

they let you know

They move in slow groups

testing one another out

to see who knows more than who,

and how they know more than you

One must follow the slow group

up every hill

through the grasslands

over some foot-bridge

that of course is crooked and creaking

and falling apart, leaking, broken bit by bit

like the old statue of our lady Liberty

but, you see, still one must follow the flow

and follow they must, but never lead

that won’t do – it signals mistrust

One must follow the lead of the selfless crew

Obedience is survival 

And there are more of them than you

Remember, they know best

Even if they don't, still pretend

they do and blend with the rest

Lie to them, they like it -

They do to you

For their words have no meaning

They’re a thoughtless,

Soulless, slow moving crew

Like an air bubble escaping

From the deepest sea of blue;

Out of the mouth of a dying fish

One bubble can rise alone, 

unique, like you

But just know,

They will follow, they always do

Their mind is among the many

and the many 
make up the mind of the whole, 
it's true!

They will now blend

and bend and change 

to be strange 

and deranged

and a little estranged 

from the old slow crew

they'll change

Oh , I promise they'll change

They'll change it all

to be a little more

 just like you. 

November (revisted)

Dawn breaks through the wiry wispy trees

as the wind blows in its heavy breath of cruel November

through the cracks of my screen-less window.

She lies beside me through all of this without a care in the world

but her apathy is not deliberate

Sadness burns through her stomach

and
it hurts as a burn should,

but not in the way a burn

burns the skin

in a way a burn burns the soul

and

the mind, respectively -

forcing the knees to touch her chest -

chin tucked into her tiny neck

bringing the poor girl back into the womb

back into the infancy cocoon

back into the deep nine month sleep

only to be born again,

born into this again,

with the ability to understand

and cope with living in a world

where change is constant

and
ease of  a smile is harder

than one thinks.

But still she lies there, silently

softly, wrapped inside

a sad dream that seemed to stretch on

her entire thirty-one years.

and it’s still November

and it’s still dawn

and the grey is still stuck across the sky

and I’m still crippled by 

the cold

and 

her apathy remains, 

cold,

and

unchanged

because

THE WIND 

never touches 

her.

Fly, Bird

I’ve moved around too much

Five places in just under a year

And it’s hard

It’s damn hard

The organizing

The packing

The borrowing, the money

The moving

::I’m bone tired::

The unfamiliar scenes

The kooky house guests

Always coming and going

The paranoiac slumbers ‘cos home

Doesn’t feel like home when you’ve

Only been there for a week. . .

A month. . .

Six months. . .

The center of your chest hollows out

And the hollowness – hurts

It weighs in the slow movement

Of time’s heavy hands

And the streets are unforgiving

And the many strong

And the many weak

Among the streets

They move in infectious parasitic parades

They NEED to compete and win it all

Like the goddamn lottery

I was told at a young age,

A VERY young age

That if I dreamt big enough

I too could have it all

But momma never told me

About the million sad faces

Dying in the gutters

                     with nothing but their dreams

                     which have 

                                      broken

                                          beside 

                                                  them. 

TEDDY

Hospitals turn my stomach
They’re never kind to me
The florescent lights, dull and yellow
The white floors, cold and sticky
That hospital smell – floral chemicals
The Sick crowd the hallways in overused gurneys
That held many dead ones and many sick ones too
And the floral chemical breeze
Brought me over to her, guiding me
Around this corner
And that corner
Through the double swinging doors
And I saw her against the cold wall, alone.
Propped up in the white gurney laid
The woman who welcomed me into this world
She was stuck there, cold, staring up into the void
Mouth hung open,
Arms pumping from chest to sky
Like a basketball player passing the ball quickly
I stared solemnly down at her in disgust . . .
::Dignity fleeting::
Her eyes caught in my face
the study of my expression
“I’m ready. I’m ready” she said,
 Half choking on the watery vomit her cancerous stomach
 Pushed upward. “I’m ready. I can’t be here anymore. It hurts.
 Josh, tell them to make it stop hurting.“
Hospital nurses are never kind.
“I lived a good life, right?" She said.
The fleeting remember the good,
for the good calms the soul
as it passes on by like a stream
beneath your feet
through a wooden bridge of unknown heights
She faded against the lights
That shone stubbornly upon her face
 and as I call upon the past
The movie plays itself for me to see
and I did see the saddest life
play-out in front of me...
 And the orphanages that raised her
Were not kind to her
And the years of cracked marbled madness were not kind to her
And days upon days too sad to open the curtains, for,
The sun was not kind to her
And the few times she smiled
when the days were numberless and alive
I remembered the most
For her smile was kind to me
But the world she left behind
Will never be kind to anyone.