Life has winners and losers,

and sometimes the losing kills.

The loss stays while the girl’s gone

and you suffer the minutes.

Every minute.

Every breeze that touches your phone

shakes your serotonin and you grab,

a junkie with a needle,

just to find no sniff of the drug.

I want you to hurt and bleed and beg,

but you never will,

not for me.

So I wait by the phone

and no one calls.

The cold winds of the past beat

you

down,

and you watch the man you wanted to be fall apart

in a series of broken dreams

and bent promises.

Time claws away the old skin

and

no

new

skin

grows,

and I walk and push

and I stomp to hold my ground

against the endless,

endless,

endless.

The whiskey hits me in the mouth

and down long arms

into my fingers,

pushing sad sad sad, tired feelings

and thoughts into my stomach.

I’m swimming in it.

Frozen tips on

thunder

birds’ wings

touch my spine.

So soft,

with wings of pain and hurt and damage,

but brushing gently-

a dog’s tail on a baby’s face.

You’re not here to drink it and

maybe you won’t drink it again,

but I am here.

This whiskey rides the lightning

and my soul feels

good.

The years pile on and

I break,

slowly.

The tragedy of the leaves,

or of my youth,

leaving.

The bones are still good,

but I need a full reno,

no lipstick pig makeover.

I’m weaker –

I break easy,

and into soft

parts –

I’m stupid and

rotten and

failing.

The once-sharp mind,

now an old worn-down baseball bat

of smoothed, bleached wood.

I’m too old for this shit

and too young to be feeling

this

dead.

The winter pushes on my heart and

I know

there’s something mean coming.

The good men get bad sick

and we hurt for more time that won’t be

in our cities far away,

chasing money and success

to make you proud.

Pride and success and money won’t take

the cancer out of kidneys,

or make the heart work right again,

but I’ll keep stuffing it in and failing you

while it takes my best years.

Cut it, break it

and lay in it,

the damage done.

A Sick heart into broken

sternum

and the bones do heal

but the man never does.

‘Babe,

I`m leaving,’

the song you met mom to.

Imagine she could see your broken heart then,

in that wretched disco,

sternum wide open and

you can’t even swallow soup right.

Everyone signs up to see their lover fade,

by slow destructive blows

or almost all at once,

even if we can’t admit it to ourselves.

The lucky ones have 80 good years,

and your nine lives started early

but have dwindled away.

Do you have a good few years left?

Can you take it for another decade,

or maybe, greedily, two?

I’m not ready to lose you, dad,

please don’t tell mom you’re leaving.

Remember burning bright,

the rambling man,

buried somewhere in comfort,

warmth and

the cure for loneliness.

There is no cure for

loneliness,

no life well lived –

only seasonal moments,

fleeting,

and running in the

setting

sun.

The winter comes –

a welcome reprieve from

happiness –

where life finds that

‘Stuck’

that these old bones call to.

The October rain is cold,

Almost colder than the snow.

It drips away my heat and soaks me in emptiness.

The winter will come, a shotgun blast to our summer sensitivity.

Every movement automatic,

The roll of my eyes from the beaming sun

The way I circle my foot to crack my toes and ankles

And the way I thrust my back upward to try and stretch it to reduce the pain.

The ‘stuck’ I feel plagues at the edges if my life,

It eats and flaws at them,

And I decide to keep taking a step at a time.

Until I don’t.

Is that our only free choice?

No.

Nobody makes you pick up the pen,

Nobody makes you take the first step of your run

And nobody makes you learn that sweet riff.

You are the only will that drives you.

Nothing else makes you except that will.

Jagged, big, dead

Man

Mocking life with each

Failure.

The breathing slides down my

Cheeks

As I enter yours and

We are Actors

On a stage of pain,

Loss

And chaos.

You bring me back from the dead

And wilt away my edges

Until I die again.

The endless dance of waiting

For your love.