Old Soles

Steps become painful
These soles have seen better days
We have been worn thin

Memory of the Quiet Room

Behind the creaking door,
Down into the dark,
Where that place was once a home.

The stairs met a wall,
An tea lights were placed.
As an unintentional shrine.

Here we kept it,
That book of shadows
Wire bound and always open.

We bragged of our shames,
Our private betrayals,
Our petty conquests of the flesh.

So proud as we sowed our way,
Through the great mediocrates,
Of our young lives.

Moments of recklessness,
Written down for posterity,
Moments we later decided to forget.

That record of our age of triumphs,
We since ordered burned,
This was its final secret.

Guilt

I had my last drink that night,
And in the morning you were gone.
Only a note by way of apology,
for being how I treated you.

You came back home,
Even when we had no home left.
Now I still panic,
If I wake up in an empty house.

It Burns

Embrace the badness

 

It burns,

Like a candle in the dark.
Like the first sip of coffee scalding the roof of your mouth.
Like acid pumping in an over worked muscle.
Like taught blistered skin that has lain in the sun to long.
Like a Hunka-hunka-burnin love.

It burns,

Behind the look in our eyes.
Under the smile on our faces.
Over the sound of our voices.
Across the vast distance between our hearts.

It burns,

A thought that can not be explained.
Feelings that must be shared.
An image that must be shown.
Words that must be spoken.

It always burns

A Lump in the Dark

Foul beast, laying in the dark.
Silent, patient, malicious.
To trip me on my way.

Embodiment of the vanities,
Prideful glutton.
Wrathful assailant.
Slothful mollycoddle.

Brought here to torment me.
Admitted by the grace of others,
Not from my designs.

Find somewhere else to be.
You damned stupid bastard cat.

Late Day, Early Spring

 

The creeping damp sounds of evening hold me,
Their  embrace cool and yawning.

The splashing water from crooked gutters,
running down the walls to saturate the earth.

The frustrated sigh of the bored housebound child,
confined to the couch and her tiny screen.

The clammy winds make the window screen hum,
as they sweep gently past the house.

The quiet panic of the old dog staring out the window,
panting at the rolling lazy grumble of the distant retreating thunder.

Laying on my bed fighting drifting slumber,
brought by the dark drowsy thrum of the late day, early spring rain.

Paper Cut

Bits of confetti fall. I think of chaos and symmetry, and of a brief article I read, but didn’t understand about the crystalline structure of meteorites.

What she wanted was much simpler My hand cramps as I work the scissors around the triangle of paper folded to impossible thickness. She never was happy with her own results.

I never thought my own attempts looked all that genuine.

We make a pair, two would-be-creatives burned out from a life of bad decisions made in desperate, impassioned pursuit of nothing.

That’s what we ended up with.

It will just have to do.

This Little Talk.

I am glad we had this little talk, that we cleared this up.
It’s good you finally see it.
I am not the person you lost, or the one you’re looking for.
I am not going to change. I am simply not interested in doing so.
I don’t think it is possible, not like that.
Over the years I may have grown, and learned new things about myself.Still, I am always the same in my core.
People are who they are, it’s in our nature.
I am glad we had this little talk, that we agree to part ways

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image: He is leaving by Hartwig HKD (CC BY-2.0)

 

After the Sun

I have a sunburn.
It’s the first time in years.
I had forgotten. About the soreness.
The feeling of heat flowing out from me, like I am on fire. The reddened, dying skin shrinking.
Itching for days.
Then it begins to bubble. Small drops of fluid under the damaged flesh.
Eruption. Cooling for just an instant.
Then the peel.
I shiver, breathless at the barely audible sound.
Almost a sigh, as I pull.
The sickly, satisfying, tugging sensation as old the separates from the new.
Exhale.
Bizarre  fascination. I can’t help it.
I reach for another loosened piece of flesh.

Visits From Nowhere

I was going through my routines this night
when as from the thinnest air,
I felt a touch that was so slight.
Might it be that someone’s there?

A brief interest seen for my endeavor
and how shallow  it does always seem,
that after this our ties you’ll sever.
It was just briefly we have shared the theme.

I labored and loved and this I showed,
to receive a view from you and others.
In return, being fairly owed,
I’ll  read your ravings about Big Brother.

In the end I’ll be alone,
Despite my writing this silly poem.

Meh, I could do better.

 This butchery of an art form presented in response to a Weekly Challenge.

Typing chimpanzee image from Wikimedia Commons and is public domain