Like a thrift store suit jacket.

I can't seem to get my head right today. It’s almost as if I woke up as someone else today, but I'm almost myself. I must admit that the concept has been on my mind for a while, who I am and have been. I drive down the streets with neon crosses that flash "Jesus saves" just a quarter mile from where they're selling single barrel scotch. Words of old philosophers and old theologies chase each other in circles in my head. It's wisdom, and pretention, and chaos, and folly. Have I forgotten myself along the way? Happiness is killing the warrior in me. Like a rusty machete in a garage of some aged adventurer; I've been places and I've seen things, though I am not what I used to be. Passions cross my mind often. The determination to care about things, any number of them, that the rest of the world wants to be muted. The question arises, am I being soothed to sleep, or was everything else the nightmare that I am waking up from? Do I possess the capability to be a regular human being? Passions. It seems that there are a increasing number of people who are terrified to have an opinion, and with good reason. To venture a stance is to face waves of aggression and isolation. The days where people could agree to disagree seem to be fading, and tolerance is a crow bar to pry people from their convictions. It is a steel baton that people are beaten with for their nonconformity. I, speak loudly because I'm no stranger to the isolation of unpopular opinion and I was built to endure oppression and abuses. As I drive I see a woman on the street with a huge smile on her face, twitching and flinching like she was being attacked by a swarm of invisible bees. She was happy in her infliction. I presume it’s the effects of some drug. Can I let apathy take me? Am I even able to induce that euphoric disassociation with the bigger picture? That ignorant bliss. I think of Plato’s cave and I know that there is no going back to ignorance and the truth is madness to the captives. Yet truth also is what breaks the chains of captivity.

Apples and Dead men

 I was walking in the cold frosted air of a dream one night counting my breath in the air. An angelic face with porcelain skin, hair bathing in artificial light smiled a tempting smile. She curved her perfect lips and let the words escape her ashen mouth calling forward what every man wished to hear.  She was choking on desire, drunk of pheromones as she took the form of a friend. I could hear the devils hoof prints approaching my flank as I peered deep in to her deep blue desire filled eyes. “Come with me, live a little” she said in her masked fallen tone piquing at the hidden destruction. I could feel the sulfur burning from my skin before I could take a single step towards or turned to run. “Do flawed men hesitate” I asked myself, looking for the strength for what must be done. An apple a day bars the world from the garden and I war with myself assessing fruit.  My fallen friend writes a blank check dipped in passion, tucking it in my breast pocket and I’m certain that my death is at hand. For two days blood boiled and raced, as I weighed the cost of integrity and hypocrisy. I spit sparks of light out of my mouth on the third night beckoning to one beyond me to return me to the waking world of men. Let me walk once again in clearly defined lines as I am too weak for this place of open graved throats and dirty lies. God woke me from that slumbering dream of temptation and life and death. I praised him for the distance, looking down at the dirt on my hands and open invitation in my back pocket. It sometimes takes two days to kill a man that never dies nor stays buried.

Sobriety I

 My soul is a well that draws deep from the waters of time. My body is a circle of stones that houses it from wondering passerby's. My essence is simplicity and inconvenience in a land of singular valves and pipes. I think maybe I am an antiquated relic .
Water is cool, and smooth. I like to press my fingers against it to feel the slightest degrees of tension. I like to immerse my face within the chilled sensation, holding my breath and counting seconds as they pass. I am in that moment. I am feeling connected with the world that is loud, in a quiet soft moment. With my face in the waters, I can feel the breath caged within me start to pound in a way of peace.

I am a vessel, spilling time around me. It swishes and swashes, swirling about. My memory is a canteen, pouring out distilled thoughts.  Drops of anguish, and drips of solitude linger snf run like condensation.  Still-frames are frozen in my recollections. 

August 26 was the day my father stopped drinking. August 26th is the day he died. August 27th the river rose and flooded me with scars. I think of God and the two loves that left in August. I used to miss them so terribly from a time that I was drunk on their affection.  I would drink in the minutes spent together, and I’d watch time disappear as I swallowed it. 

 But I’m sober now.

 I’m not drunk off affection, or whiskey colored eyes, or the pain of a broken promise of a future spent together. I’m not sipping on “what could have beens” because I’ve come into an understanding. We weren’t in love, we were just in fun together.  Truth is a Monday morning wake up call, and I know we were wrong for each other.  

 I’m sober now. 

Sobriety II

Driving down a dark road lit by bar lights I see  a woman with unnatural eye lashes pawing at a man who is consumed in a vampiric embrace. People focus inwardly on craving, And outwardly on critique. Its easy for friends to be drunk on my laughter, its when i pour my problems they're bitter to the taste. I stand like a sober man among bartenders and drunks and wave back and forth between being a blur and just another faceless customer. They take what they want but they don't want what you give. "Everyone's got their own problems, don't kill the vibe" What selfish thing to say to a friend. Your suffering is secondary to my pleasure.
I keep trying to speak in stone cold sobriety of reality and depth. Goldfish only hear this moment and have no memory of moments beyond liquid.  How do I pour the sobriety of my mind into a worthy vessel like pure cold water in a clean glass. Why should I toss the keys to my understanding to those in no condition to drive, To those who are unskilled in how to operate heavy reasoning.  They swerve into accusations,  pit right into blame, and tout their innocence while staggering from the wreckage. Im driving down this same dark lit road now strobed in reds and blues. There is no party here any longer. Just a great disturbance of the peace.

Cradle me away

 This heart of mine is barely pushing the air in my lungs because I'm dying darlin. 
I'm coughing on all the old words and unfulfilled dreams. I'm suffocating in the loneliness.  
I can't sleep but i'm still dreaming of you. 

When they lay me to rest once and final, I will dream no more. All the the unspoken things will rise from my ashes in the form of wishes and they, not I will caress you.  My empty and unfulfilled ambitions will trace your skin like a chill in the night, having never accompanied the warmth of your bed while I was living. 

I'm drowning in my own shallow breaths and my thoughts pull me out to the abyss. 

Drink

 The smell of the open bottle was lingering from the table. He had never been all that much of a drinker before, however he has found that the alcohol appeared to be growing stronger as he was growing weaker. "I'll never become that man" He had always said in his mind, while passing down judgment on those who struggled with the very issues he was facing now.  The seconds slowly ticked away from the clock he had hanging on the far wall as he glared at the dark brown bottle. He caught the reflection of his fixed gaze on the glass. His eyes stared into what he saw as a stranger, what he didn't want to believe was himself, a reflection of what he has become. He took a long deep breath and reached for a glass. It was a cold night, like many other nights. He was alone that night like most other nights. Lately, however, He was feeling quite more cold and alone than usual. With the pain of feeling nothing stinging strong, he poured the whiskey. He watched as each splash and drop washed over the silvery white polish of the ice. The drink wasn't judgmental. It didn't stare at him with overwhelming disapproval at his wasting potential. It didn't ask him for money or demand unrealistic expectations of him. In many ways, he felt that it was a better friend than half the friends he's known in his days. In an attempt to dull the awareness, the glass was tipped. Each ounce that poured past his lips was a problem without a solution washing away. Each sip carried a burden away.

Fat lip

I keep saying stuff. 

I'll be relating in the course of conversation and share something that stems from my personal history of being choked out on thanksgiving or my brother running away or being poor or living in a condemned building or a number of messed up things that are uncomfortable in conversation 

and then I'll make a joke about kissing or something innocuous  and that's where people are like "Oh my stars, oh golly, oh no thats so out of pocket" and I'll be standing on the outside of it feeling judged, and I know that I'm probably most definitely feeling sensitive about it on account of therapy throwing explosives into the stillness of my emotional waters... 

But I just feel that distance between where I'm from and where all you are from.

I think about the worlds we know. The evils we've overcome and the things that try to destroy us.  I wouldn't fully know how to unmake myself to fit in the places I'd hope to be, to belong. It's made me strong, how many times I've been destroyed over and over again. I've grown from each thing I've overcome. Yet, I understand that there are ways of a grown man of which I see that not all see.  

 I am aware of how much space I fill in a room, and I try to be smaller out of love to give space and freedom for those to express themselves. 

These confessions are laced with opportunities for the love those of God may bring.  

I look outside myself  and see you say I'm welcome here... 
But if I am here, I will break your illusions 

I don't mean to be a loaded gun in the sandbox. Just some fat lip spilling blood while the kids play.